Why would any self-respecting conservative tune in to "Morning Edition" on National Public Radio?
"How can you listen to that stuff?" a conservative's friends ask him when he sheepishly admits tuning in to "Morning Edition," the drive-time news program on National Public Radio. After all, his fellow conservatives are appalled by the shamelessly leftist bias with which NPR reporters present nearly every issue of the day, and outraged at being taxed to support the propagation of such propaganda.
Why, then, does he tune in? The fact that "Morning Edition" is often the only all-news program available on the car radio in many areas of the country has something to do with it. But the real reason, like it or not, is that the conservative has quite a lot in common with the folks at NPR. They care about the same things; they may not agree on any, but they do both care about them. The conservative wants to know what "gay" activists are up to lately, what Hillary Clinton is mouthing off about now, and what Teddy Kennedy is proposing this week to socialize the medical profession. And, often enough, the best place to find out those things -- while on the road, at least -- is NPR.
The commonality of enemy soldiers who find themselves sharing a foxhole is a literary common-place, the affinity between policemen and criminals a television stereotype. These precious paradoxes do have a basis in reality, however. The youth who plays basketball for his high school team may very well find that he has more in common with his rivals at the school across town than he does with the football players at his own alma mater. Beaux competing for the same belle will find a congruity of interests in each other that they will never discover in their best chums. And the more fervent adherents of antagonistic sects may find much to commend in each other that they will not find in their lackluster brethren.
When Whittaker Chambers confronted the horror of the conspiracy to which he had devoted the better part of his life, he became not a non-communist, but an anti-communist. The freedom movement is filled with men and women who, like Chambers, did not merely back off from their beliefs, but came full circle. Though they seem remarkable at first glance, conversions such as his are more to be expected from our sworn enemies than from the indifferent and apathetic people in the middle.
It may be unreasonable to expect Bob Edwards, Carl Castle, Linda Wertheimer, Nina Totenberg, and other NPR staffers to come around to our way of thinking. No doubt, they will continue to promote the socialistic aims that make National Public Radio repugnant to all conservatives. But, even if they are on the wrong side, the folks at NPR do recognize what's important in this world. Conservatives know what they're after, what makes them tick. What we can't comprehend is that vast majority of people in the middle who don't even know what's going on, or don't even care.
