Alicia Shepard weighed on Mark Fiore's cartoon.
Background here
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Here's Shepard's comments from today's 'Talk of the Nation', starting at about 1:46
http://www.npr.org/...
Here's the Ombudsman's 'blog' at NPR.
http://www.npr.org/...
Shepard made some comments today on Talk of the Nation that were shockingly unprofessional.
Given her track record of partisanship and unresponsiveness, this was not unexpected.
Apparently this Fiore cartoon sparked some sort of concerted effort on the part of baggers to 'flood' the Ombusdman's office with complaints. But it's funny, as almost all the complaints I've seen are about NPR's over-reaction and chastising of the actions of the ombudsman.
I detected a sense of pride or some sort of hubris when Shepard noted the words "tea bag" and "tea bagging" are now going to be put through NPR's 'politically correct filter'.
Sort of like what they did with 'torture'.
Her smarmy tone in the Talk of the Nation piece made me want to vomit.
Frankly, Fiore's cartoon is an exaggerated but a generally accurate portrayal of the majority of the tea baggers. They have little knowledge about the issues they are incensed about, and when challenged divert to displays like this one.
No mention of the history [as Frank puts it], of the "vile, contemptible nonsense" that is present across the whole spectrum of these protests was made in any of Alicia Shepard's remarks. We all know of case after case where this is exactly what tea baggers and their ilk represent. They are incapable of establishing discourse that is based upon facts or reality.
Shepard however feels more than free to makes value judgments and characterizations about the nature of Fiore's cartoon posted on the NPR website. She quotes MRC and posters with their complaints:
"The cartoon is a perfect caricature of what NPR looks like to conservatives: liberals snidely imagining conservatives to be monosyllabic clods who can't make an argument beyond name-calling," said Tim Graham, director of media analysis for the conservative Media Research Center. "Conservatism is 'satirized' into a form of political retardation."
Here are some typical comments NPR received:
"There's no doubt I'm a conservative although I'm not part of the Tea Party movement, but I am tired of getting slammed for disagreeing with the government," said Myron Harris of Florida. "When I see a place like NPR promoting an anti-conservative agenda, it becomes very frustrating."
"This should be on the Democratic National Committee website," said Don Miller, who lives outside of Sacramento. "Why did NPR allow this? I'll tell you why. The people who allowed it have the same views."
"I'm sick of liberals calling conservatives 'tea baggers,'" said Ryan Parker, of Kansas City, KS. "The sexual reference really bothers me."
The conflation of words 'tea bag' and 'teabagger' into some sort of sexual reference? All made up in the minds of those who want to 'go there'. Yet Shepard wants to actually spend time trying to analyze and make summary judgments about it, so much so she crows that that NPR will filter it out.
Shepard's job, to be an independent, impartial adjudicator or neutral observer who works in the best interests of the public is a bad joke, a sickening self parody of the very idea of ombudsman. NPR has a serious problem, when they apparently cannot even recognize or understand the damage being done to their integrity by allowing this person to continue to serve as Ombudsman.