What did you believe and when did you believe it?

Washington Monthly, July-August, 2005 by Charles Peters

What disturbed me most about the recent revelation about the investigation of the guests on Bill Moyers's television show "Now" arranged by Kenneth Tomlinson, the chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, was that, according to The New York Times, it was focused on the "political leanings" of the guests. It would be legitimate to investigate whether the facts provided by the guests were true, or whether the segment in which they appeared was fair and accurate. But examining the guests' political beliefs sounds like an assignment Joe McCarthy would have given Roy Cohn.

To get an idea of the quality of intellect behind the report to Tomlinson, consider that it called Sen. Chuck Hagel, the Nebraska Republican, a "liberal" because he had some doubts about Bush's Iraq policy. It also classified a segment on Pentagon waste as "anti-defense."