Fox News President : "NPR run by Nazis"

Roger Ailes, head of 'fair and balanced' Fox news referred to NPR as being run by Nazis.  There was a time in American politics that you could call a politician anything but a Nazi.   In a well remembered incident, at least by Democrats, Moveon.org called for followers to submit their video takes on the Bush Presidency.  Thousands were submitted.  Among them, one called Bush a Nazi.   MoveOn removed it as soon as they realized what the content was and they never aired it, other that posting it, along with all the other videos on  their website.  It was there for no more than a couple of hours.

The right went apeshit.  In the Tea Party era calling someone a Nazi has become common, at least on the right,, prompted, partly by books such as Jonah Goldberg's nonsensical 'Liberal Fascism'.   Google 'Obama Nazi' and you get well over 5 million hits.

Ailes has since apologized.  Big fucking deal.   Something this absurd should never have even entered the brain of a head of a national Cable News Network......and of all things calling NPR (National Pulbic Radio) Nazi's.  NPR has often been targeted as being a liberal dominated media outlet but NPR, over the years has become far more evenly balanced than any of the cable new networks.    It's national news is straight down the middle.   What it doesn't resort to are the screaming matches on the other cables with pundits talking over each other.  They actually report news.   Their other programming tends towards the pointy headed but without any political bent.  

In the current climate, where ignorance and parochialism are cherished values anything that isn't that is automatically suspect.   The GOP's first bill since the election is to defund NPR.  NPR survives on some Federal money and fund drives.  In the current economic climate, defunding NPR could cause it to disappear.  That would be tragic for the voices of reason and intelligence, which, in the minds of today's right is the same as being a Nazi.  Strange world.