One of the things I’ve missed most about working Saturdays was the chance to listen to “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me,” a satirical news quiz show on NPR. (Yes, I listen to NPR, but mainly on the weekends. You’ll get my Car Talk from me when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.)
This week, I heard it again for the first time since August, and it was worth it. They were doing their quadrennial recap of Dan Rather’s colorful colloquialisms that he spins on election night. I was chuckling along with them as they repeated such phrases as “if frogs had hip pockets, they’d carry guns” until one of the commentators tossed out the following gem.
“My personal favorite was ‘well, fax me from Kinko’s and put egg on my face.'”
Damn you, NPR. I nearly drove into the ditch over THAT one.
But think about that for a moment. NPR, one of the strongest bastions of liberalism, is openly Mocking Dan Rather and C-BS. And more importantly, doing it well.
J.
It might have something to do with Rather’s election night commentary (every freakin’ election) being completely nonsensical rigmarole.
And it might have something to do with credible news organizations being able to criticize every side.
They know what’s good for them.
Since they depend on public funding, they deliver some desultory bipartisanship now and then when the republicans are in power.
back in the Gingrich days there was a lot of talk of eliminating them altogether. Now, for example, PBS has both “Uncommon Knowledge” and “The Wall Street Journal Editorial Report”.
Plus, of course, Dan’s a schmuck.
CBS screwed up, and the rest of the Leftstream media can’t paddle away from the sunken hulk fast enough.
I put jokes about the memo hoax in the same category as jokes about Clinton being a skirt-chaser and liar: Some things are simply undeniable.
Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me is my absolute favorite show on the radio, edging out Car Talk and better by a long way than anything else out there. (It’s basically a news quiz show, for those who don’t know it, done very tongue-in-cheek.) It’s not really lefty-media, not even to the degree that NPR news is (and nowhere near some of NPR’s talk shows), and is an equal-opportunity ego-puncturer.
Hey, NPR is piling on because Dandy Dan got caught doing something most news organizations do. They’re like criminals. It’s not about the crime, it’s about not getting caught.
It’s Cah Tawk.
I started listening to Car Talk only about 3 or 4 months ago. The hosts are hilarious, and, suprisingly, the callers are top notch as well. On too many other shows the callers suck.
Tony Pierce has a great list of Ratherisms. Clicky namey.
You guys actually like Car Talk? Wow. At the risk of sounding all “it was cool until everybody started doing it,” that show was funny and interesting 10 years ago when they actually talked about cars. Now it’s just inside jokes and self-congratulation. Oh, and it’s not funny.
There is very little serious stuff on the radio these days. Talk shows are basically echo chambers with ads. Local talk is disappearing. Classical and jazz are getting slowly squeezed out. Public radio is an oasis in the desert.
The NPR news people may have a bias, but they don’t have an agenda. They look at a far wider variety of topics than anyone else. They don’t suppress alternative viewpoints. They will talk to anybody that tries to make sense. I may get angry at their reports, but I never tire of listening.
Ray and Tom Magliozzi are the funniest guys on the radio. They have good common sense, great callers, fun music, interesting puzzles and more psychological insight than Dr. Phil. Plus, they’re not real stuck up. You can also learn some things about cars.
As to Dan Rather, he has made himself a target and deserves what he gets.
Rather, unfortunately, is our own little antichrist that perverts values and glories in falsehoods. Arrogant, condescending and disingenuous, laughing with delight and mocking the sheep that listen to him.
“Will Rogers never met Dan Rather.”
The way CBS cooks the truth in that vile crockpot they call their news division reminds one of the late Rodney Dangerfield’s statement that his wife’s cooking was so bad that he couldn’t leave dental floss in the kitchen because the cockroaches would hang themselves. Would it be that CBS executives would do likewise.
Gawd. A big yawn for that dumb NPR-is-so-left comment (although, NPR regular Tony Blankley – ya know, that former Gingrich spokesman – is just soooo Noam Chomsky).
I’ve always thought Wait Wait is funny in the crusty way Lake Wobegon Tales was endearing (yet another “lefty” NPR show).
The best, funniest, most poignant, most provocative most informative, most enlightening, most infuriating, most revealing, most innovative, most creatively brilliant, and most seriously freakin’ cool show by far, on the radio anywhere in the entire universe, including NPR, is This American Life, even when it offends my tender conservative Evangelical gun-wavin’ illiterate redstatedwellin’ gristlebrained hillbilly inbred sensibilities.
To paraphrase an utterance I’ve heard in my little Evangelical ghetto: “There’s a great, TAL-shaped void in every human being.”
Ira Glass is a bona fide genius. His show is vital.
The above statements are not statements of mere opinion. They are statements of objective truth.
Blessings upon thee, one and all,
Robert
N’yeeeh…
While we’re jumping up and down on Dan’s reputation, I’d like to remind folks of the ’94 revolution. Remember the tantrum we threw? I left off watching NBC’s coverage and the talking heads were sitting at a round table. After pontificating, the late David Brinkley threw down a pencil in what appeared to be disgust. Unfortuatly for him, it kept rolling until it fell off the front of the table. All four watched it, and the silence, except for the hex edges rapping, spoke volumes about how they got caught with their bias showing.
But hey, what does Bernie Goldberg know anyway, Doc?
Whoever wrote this-
“The NPR news people may have a bias, but they don’t have an agenda. They look at a far wider variety of topics than anyone else. They don’t suppress alternative viewpoints. They will talk to anybody that tries to make sense. I may get angry at their reports, but I never tire of listening.”
doesn’t have a clue. Let me tell you exactly what an agenda is. NPR (that’s National PUBLIC Radio) has at last count 9,999,999 items/week that are pro Liberal, and one, count it, one item that is pro Conservative. MOREOVER, the “bumper music” featured in between spots is very up-beat for the Liberal bits; then they play funeral dirges around the Conservative piece. Can you say SUBLIMINAL? I say when you listen, PAY ATTENTION!
Whoever wrote this-
“The NPR news people may have a bias, but they don’t have an agenda. They look at a far wider variety of topics than anyone else. They don’t suppress alternative viewpoints. They will talk to anybody that tries to make sense. I may get angry at their reports, but I never tire of listening.”
doesn’t have a clue. Let me tell you exactly what an agenda is. NPR (that’s National PUBLIC Radio) has at last count 9,999,999 items/week that are pro Liberal, and one, count it, one item that is pro Conservative. MOREOVER, the “bumper music” featured in between spots is very up-beat for the Liberal bits; then they play funeral dirges around the Conservative piece. Can you say SUBLIMINAL?
I say “when you listen, PAY ATTENTION ! ! !”
No doubt they are using this music to program the next Manchurian Candidate. Your emphasis on the word “public” jogged my memory. They aren’t really public.
from the NPR site:
“Approximately half of NPR’s annual operating revenue is contributed from the private sector, primarily from corporations and foundations. NPR receives no direct support from the federal government; typically one to two percent of our annual budget comes from grants from government agencies, for which we must apply. The remaining half of NPR’s budget comes from member stations and the fees paid by stations to purchase our programming.”
I don’t know what’s funnier: David’s ramblings or the fact he may have actually sat around and tried to document them.
Viva the Public in Pubilc Radio!
Danno is busier than a cat burying a turd on a marble floor trying to salvage what’s left of his pathetic career.