Both Ken Tomlinson and George Neumayr (executive editor of The American Spectator) can bite me. They wouldn’t know “balanced opinions” if said opinions tackled them like William “The Fridge” Perry.

Yet these two – with full support of the BushCo theocons – are on a mission to strip CPB, PBS and NPR of funding due to a perceived liberal bias. I’ve been watching a debate on “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer”, and outgoing chair of KCPT, Bill Reed, has been showing how completely asinine the theocon argument against public broadcasting actually is. Neumayr has been able to do nothing other than whine and speak in non-arguments.

The theocons feel threatened by a truly unbiased outlet for news and information that is not class-baised like cable TV. In the debate, Neumayr has been citing two minor so-called examples of bias: the reports of Bill Moyers on “NOW” (from which Moyers left in 2004), and a single episode of “Postcards From Buster” that featured a visit to a Vermont farm run by a lesbian couple. That’s two examples, not an epidemic.

Yes, PBS and NPR have shot themselves in the foot by accepting major corporate spoonsorship for their programs. The argument could be made that PBS and NPR are as commercial as the major networks, and that public money should not be given to an essentially commercial entity. But they don’t see the entire picture.

The real problem the theocons have with PBS and NPR is that they often call the theocon bluffs, lies, deceptions and slurs. They want another sycophant parrot network in the line of the often-misleading Fox News Channel. They want so-called journalists in the mold of Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Tucker Carlson and Ann Coulter to be the role models for “balanced reporting.” They can’t handle being called wrong, so they want to exercise bully rights to steal more from the U.S. public – a populace already reeling in the loss of governmental aid, national pride and international respect.

It would truly be tragic to remove the only educationally-valid non-cable TV outlet in the United States, and to silence some of the only in-depth, balanced radio programming in the country. While people shouldn’t learn everything from television and radio, PBS and NPR serve a vital role in the education of this country’s population. Given that the country’s education system is rapidly falling into ruin under the watch of BushCo’s suffocation of public schools, isn’t it worth it to keep at least one corner of the free, public airwaves an educational island?

So support NPR and PBS. Write or call your congressmen and congresswomen. Keep the public in public broadcasting.

(Note that I didn’t cite MoveOn.org’s petition in this post. While MoveOn has a lot of popular support, I can’t say I’ve ever seen them prove effective at creating the change they support. And signing online petitions seldom brings change in the D.C. mindset.)