Is Big Bird a Red-Stater?

He will be if the GOP has their way. The WaPo reports some alarming developments in the adminstration of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting:

Late last week, CPB's board declined to renew the contract of its chief executive, Kathleen Cox, a veteran administrator at the agency. She was replaced by Ken Ferree, a Republican who had been a top adviser to Michael Powell, the former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. The Ferree appointment followed the dismissals or departures in recent months of at least three other senior CPB officials, all of whom had Democratic affiliations.

"We don't want to be alarmist, but I would be less than honest if I said there wasn't concern here," said one senior executive at PBS, who insisted on anonymity because CPB provides about 10 percent of its annual budget. "When you put it all together, a pattern starts to emerge."

A senior FCC official, who would not speak for attribution because he must rule on issues affecting public broadcasting, went further, saying CPB "is engaged in a systematic effort not just to sanitize the truth, but to impose a right-wing agenda on PBS. It's almost like a right-wing coup. It appears to be orchestrated."

Jesus. I mean, it's not enough that they're completely dominating the network stations? They have to have PBS, too? As a member of the original Sesame Street generation, this really gets me steamed. I can't think of any other network that's had a more consistently positive effect on American culture as a whole. What's really disgusting about this is that most people consider PBS one of the most balanced networks on television - poll after poll has found little to no perception of liberal OR conservative bias on PBS. But that's not enough for the wingnuts. No, they have to appoint a new chief executive who doesn't even watch the network. In Ferree's own words, "I don't always want to sit down and read Shakespeare, and Lehrer is akin to Shakespeare. Sometimes I really just want a People magazine."

How fucking sad is it when the head of PBS considers it an insult to compare the anchor of his flagship show to the greatest writer that ever lived? Color me depressed. There's more on this over at the Progress Report.