Mark, I don’t think you meant to suggest otherwise, but I just want to be clear about what the “anti-NPR bandwagon” is. You agree that it was wrong to fire Juan Williams and that “there should be no government funding of news operations.” In my mind, that is the anti-NPR bandwagon.

I am not looking to get rid of NPR in the sense that many on the hard Left want to suppress conservative commentary. Far from it. I just don’t think government should be subsidizing it. And that doesn’t mean there should be no “public” television or radio. If they can raise money from their audience and other donors, more power to them. I just don’t think government, at least at the federal level, should have anything to do with it.

One more thing. Like you, I don’t have any complaints about the way hosts of NPR programs have treated me. I haven’t gone on in a long time because I think the programs are mostly pointless — or, rather, my participation was, from my perspective, pointless. The shows are generally predesigned to drive a viewpoint and I was being asked to come on as the token Neanderthal so they could present an image of objectivity. And while they favor long, in-depth treatments of issues, which can be good, I always found there was very little exchange between opposing viewpoints: A lefty gives a long soliloquy about what a menace to mankind President Bush is, and then the host turns to me, not to respond but to ask new questions — so they give you the illusion of debate but we’re not really engaging, and my choice is either to let the soliloquy stand unchallenged or look like I can’t answer the host’s next series of questions. But that goes to method, not manners. The hosts have always been very gracious and civil to me, and on occasion I’ve even thought it wasn’t a total waste of everyone’s time.