Religious but not Right

Patricia Harrison was co-chair of the Republican National Committee from 1997 to 2001. Apparently, that's the only background you need to run public broadcasting in this country, because yesterday Harrison was chosen as the new president and chief executive of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Ironically, the CPB was set up by Congress in the 1960s to shield public broadcasting from political influence. With Harrison's partisan background, public broadcasting is unlikely to much longer keep its distinction as one of the few remaining non-commercial places on the broadcast dial (either radio or TV). As Senator Frank Lautenberg put it, "This is a fatal blow to the historic political neutrality of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting."

Why do corporations, and their partisan partners in the GOP, need to control PBS and National Public Radio, too? They already run the other 57 channels (although nowadays it's probably closer to 157 channels -- but there's still nothin' on...).