NPR, your tax dollars at war.

NPR,which is Fox News for the cool people had a show on Sunday March 14th about Syria.  The Antiwar.com blog discussed it here.  In reading John Walsh’s account, one is easily reminded of a Monty Python sketch.  John Cleese introduced three prominent dead people to debate life after death.  One is a churchman, another an atheist and I forget the third.  They were all propped in chairs.  Cleese finishes by saying words to the effect, there you are, three dead people offering no opininon, there is no life after death.

The three NPR panelists may not have been dead, or even brain dead, but they were not too lively.  There was no divergence from the party line that Syria is the biggest meany since......  Take your pick, we have had a lot of bogeymen in the last several years.

The panelists were longtime government functionaries so it would be a surprise if they said something that was not the position of one of the two parties.  There was no surprise.

The panel was hosted by NPR sinecurista, Melissa Block,  Walsh called the first guest, “the aptly named Anne-Marie Slaughter, former “director of planning” at the State Department.”  Her take,  she is for intervention the right way.  No kill zones, defensive arms.  all terms that will be meaningless once intervention actually starts.  Melissa would have at least shown herself to be something more than just a shill, if she could have mouthed the words any sane person knows are true, “Anne-Marie, you’re full of it.”  That, of course, was not on.

Next up was one of the architects of the failed Iraq policy and a failed World Bank honcho, Paul I always fail upward Wolfowitz.  He had some words, and Mr. Walsh duly noted their import, but who cares.  The management of NPR and its audience have to be vapid to give that man a listen.  Rumor has it, he hope to ascend to the chair of Saint Peter at the next Papal Conclave.

Third guy was an antiwar voice of dissent.  Nah.  Daniel Serwer is a former U.S. “special envoy” and “coordinator” for the Bosnian Federation.  He feels we should go in big time but can’t because no political will exists.  No kidding.

So no real opposition to war from the three, but the last guy having some slight connection to reality.  

One gets the feeling the difference between Fox and NPR is that Fox is fight them so they behave and NPR is fight them so they behave well.  Neither works and it is a distinction without a difference.


Update: Russian troops are reported in Syria. It will be fun to watch the commenters start saying no fair!