After a decade of failing to starve the network to death through appropriations cuts, the republicans have taken a new strategy by stacking the board of directors with conservative ideologues. And it's paying off mightily. CNN's right wing analyst Tucker Carlson recently got his own taxpayer-funded talk show, and now it's the far more extreme editorial board of the Wall Street Journal that gets a show. Here's an Eric Alterman article on the subject- apologies if this has already been posted.
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040830&s=alterman
"Given the right's domination of television talk shows and its already strong representation on public broadcasting, the only imaginable explanation for the decision to put PBS resources in the hands of well-financed, well-distributed, unabashedly partisan and journalistically challenged ideologues can be naked political pressure. As we have seen over the past three decades, the relentless conservative campaign to "work the refs" works. If liberals are to retain their voice in the public discourse, they had better find a way to let the pooh-bahs of PBS know exactly what they think of decisions like this one."