Reply #5: I totally disagree with this. Smiley remains superficially neutral on his [View All]

[AP]

NPR show, and if you go see him talk off air, he is super liberal. How can you blame him? NPR is not a home to progressivism, contrary to many people's opinions here. Smiley is like Spiderman. That movie was very subtley left wing. Millions of people went to see it. There's always room in our culture for the subtle left wing thing that millions here. Sometimes it's more important to have that than it is to have the super-liberal thing that 100 people see.

Even Smiley's superficial neutrality is a surface that is easily scratched to reveal something much more progressive, and which can be summarized as a desire to see wealth and political power spread down and out, rather than up and narrowly.

Incidentally, I have purchased more books by authors interviewed on his show than any other NPR show, and the books always turn out to be very progressive, and very informative. Also, just listen to what he talks about.

Someday, a graduate student is going to write a thesis about how left wing his show really was, and about how it had to work within the confines of an NPR which really drives towards pro-corporatism.

By the way, I still think it's good to have people like Watts and Gingrich on the air, so long as they're getting asked hard questions, or, at least, subtle, informed and informative questions, which Smiley does do.

Smiley is NO Uncle Tom.