Posted on 10/05/2012 7:01:56 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Mitt Romney sure ruffled a lot of feathers over his proposal to eliminate taxpayer funding for government-sponsored TV. As soon as the GOP presidential candidate singled out PBS for cuts during the presidential debate in Denver, the hysterical squawking commenced.
Left-leaning celebrities immediately erupted on Twitter. “WOW!!! No PBS!! WTF how about cutting congress’s stuff leave big bird alone,” Whoopi Goldberg fumed. “Mitt is smirky, sweaty, indignant and smug with an unsettling hint of hysteria. And he wants to kill BIG BIRD,” actress Olivia Wilde despaired. “Who picks on Big Bird!!! #bulliesthatswho,” actress Taraji Henson chimed in.
Social-media activists called for a Million Muppet March on the National Mall to “show your support for Big Bird, Muppets, PBS and all that is good.” The grammar-challenged operatives of George Soros–funded Media Matters for America lectured “right-wing media” to be “more concerned with Americans having jobs insteading [sic] of obsessing whether or not Big Bird has one.”
Indignant PBS, which employs not-so-neutral debate moderator Jim Lehrer, issued a statement decrying Romney’s failure to “understand the value the American people place on public broadcasting and the outstanding return on investment the system delivers to our nation.” And President Obama, awakened from his beatdown-induced stupor, scurried the next morning to the safe confines of a campaign rally to mock Romney for “getting tough on Big Bird.”
The kiddie-character kerfuffle is a manufactured flap that may play well to liberals in Hollywood and Washington. But beyond the borders of La-La Land, desperate Democrats who cling childishly to archaic federal subsidies look like cartoonish buffoons. Let’s face it: The Save Big Bird brigade is comically out of touch with 21st-century realities.
In 1967, when Congress passed the Public Broadcasting Act, family options for quality children’s programming were severely limited. More than four decades later, there’s a vibrant marketplace for educational broadcasting — on radio, TV, and the Internet — that teems with furry friends and information-packed shows.
PBS speaks of itself with cultish self-reverence: “For more than 40 years,” the government network chastised Romney, “Big Bird has embodied the public broadcasting mission — harnessing the power of media for the good of every citizen, regardless of where they live or their ability to pay. Our system serves as a universally accessible resource for education, history, science, arts and civil discourse.”
In reality, of course, PBS affiliates have become increasingly corporatized. As GOP senator Jim DeMint noted last year, franchises like Sesame Street “are multimillion-dollar enterprises capable of thriving in the private market. According to the 990 tax form all nonprofits are required to file, Sesame Workshop president and CEO Gary Knell received $956,513 — nearly a million dollars — in compensation in 2008. And, from 2003 to 2006, ‘Sesame Street’ made more than $211 million from toy and consumer product sales.”
Sesame Street has also become increasingly politicized. Under the Obama administration, Elmo has lobbied for the FCC’s national broadband plan and the first lady’s Big Nanny nutrition bill. Investigative journalist James O’Keefe caught former NPR exec Ron Schiller on tape trashing the Tea Party as “racist” and “Islamophobic.” And the official PBS Twitter account sent a special shout-out to radical leftist group Move On last year for leading the government-media rescue charge. Moreover, as I’ve previously reported, NPR and PBS have no problem raising money from corporations and left-wing philanthropists, including billionaire George Soros, whose Open Society Institute gave $1.8 million to pay for at least 100 journalists at NPR member radio stations in all 50 states over the next three years.
President Obama sneered at Romney for daring to mention PBS subsidies in the context of deficit reduction. But Obama’s own Bowles-Simpson deficit-reduction commission singled out Corporation for Public Broadcasting spending. “The current CPB funding level is the highest it has ever been,” the panel noted after Obama proposed hiking yearly appropriations to $450 million in 2012. Doing away with the appropriation would save nearly $500 million in 2015 alone. Over ten years, those savings would total $5 billion (or roughly ten Solyndras). In these tough times, that’s more than chump change and child’s play.
Romney’s right: It’s time for government media to grow up and get off the dole. It’s time for taxpayers to flip the Bird.
— Michelle Malkin is the author of Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies.
We’ve come to snuff the rooster.
Big Bird is over 40. It’s high time he left the tattered nest of taxpayer funding. If PBS can’t cut it in the marketplace by now, they deserve to go bust.
I work near the kiddie amusement park Sesame Place. That joint is a license to print money.
Sesame Street WILL DO FINE IN THE MARKETPLACE.
According to Mark Simone (who also works at WABC and PBS but does not mind PBS being de-funded and going private), Production for Sesame Street Costs something like close to $20 Million. Merchandising in the USA alone gave the producers over $45 Million !! ( This doesn’t count WORLDWIDE distribution ).
as long as there are children, Sesame Street will do well ( just cut out all the politically correct crap they’ve been peddling on us recently ).
PBS could broadcast repeats for the next 100 years and no one would notice.
Excellent reference line!
Big Bird? Is it named after the cuckoo which survives by brood parasitism where the mother bird lays her eggs in another bird's nest. Often the chick will end up bigger than the surrogate "parents" demanding more and more food, starving the "parents'" actual offspring.
This needs to be used to expose the democrats and their twisted priorities and unwillingness to compromise on even the tiniest issue.
Every republican in the country needs to be out there making ads that put simple choices to all of America.
Bike paths or food stamps? Choose 1
Big Bird or Granny? Choose 1
Slavery or freedom? Choose 1
Starlings are the same way. I see robins feeding near adult starlings around the yard every spring.
The Democrats cannot find new issues: I remember that when House Speaker Newt Gingerich wanted to trim PBS funding almost eighteen years ago there was an editorial cartoon that featured to panels: the liberal side of the equation showed Big Bird being served up on a platter like a Thanksgiving turkey; the conservative side had Gingerich exhorting the highly profitable “Sesame Street” program, as represented by “Big Bird” to flap its own wings and learn to straighten up and fly right.
Off topic: years ago, I recall Mad Magazine running a wildly funny parody of the leftist “Sesame Street” called “Reality Street.” Mister Hooper, the elderly grocer who used to be featured on the program, was chasing away thieving street punks with a broom.
Osam Bird-Laden
#1 - If we’re going to fund PBS, they should be the one venue where we reinstate the Fairness Doctrine, since the government is paying the bills. So for every hour Tavis Smiley or Gwen Ifill gets, they’ll have to give a Mark Levin or Glenn Beck an hour as well.
#2 - Every child in America has at least one stuffed Big Bird, Elmo, or Cookie Monster. Does all that merchandising money go into the pockets of the Henson estate? Doesn’t PBS get a cut? I ask this because I don’t see Hasbro begging for government money to fund the 30 minute Saturday morning commercials for their toys. So, if Sesame Street and Dora the Explorer want to keep getting airtime, they can pony up some cash to fund PBS.
True, so there would need to be some independent party judging whether they really are balanced, so if they pull tricks like that, they’ll suffer automatic funding cuts.
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