WHEN TWITTER attached a tag reading "state-affiliated media" to National Public Radio's profile earlier this month, the broadcast company rightly complained that the label was pejorative and unfair. Twitter uses that term to designate government-controlled propaganda outlets, such as China's People's Daily and Russia's RT network. Whatever critics might say about NPR, it clearly doesn't take orders from federal bureaucrats and has never hesitated to harshly criticize US government officials and policies it doesn't like.
To its credit, Twitter acknowledged the justice of NPR's objection. On April 10 it changed the tag to "Government-funded Media," a much more accurate label, comparable to the one it applies to tweets from the BBC and Voice of America. Yet far from being mollified by Twitter's willingness to correct its description, NPR had a hissy fit. On April 12, it announced that it was suspending all activity on Twitter. "We are not putting our journalism on platforms that have demonstrated an interest in undermining our credibility," NPR fumed in a statement. "We are turning away from Twitter." Some individual public radio stations followed suit. Margaret Low, the CEO of Boston's WBUR, said her station would stop tweeting "in solidarity with NPR," accusing Twitter and its owner Elon Musk of "seek[ing] to undermine the integrity of our news organizations."
But Twitter had undermined neither the credibility nor the integrity of NPR and its affiliates. It had merely pointed out that they are subsidized with public funds. For some reason, NPR — along with PBS, which likewise stormed off the social media site last week — hates when attention is drawn to its government largesse. (As Musk put it: "Publicly funded PBS joins publicly funded NPR in leaving Twitter in a huff after being labeled 'Publicly Funded.'") NPR and its allies routinely claim that the issue of federal funding is raised only as a red herring, since — they say — the amount of taxpayer dollars they receive is too trivial to affect its work. Yet NPR also claims that "federal funding is essential to public radio's service to the American public and its continuation is critical." Well, which is it? Too minuscule for the public to care about? Or a lifeline without which public broadcasting would dry up?
"Presently, NPR receives funding for less than 1 percent of its budget directly from the federal government," explained Influence Watch, a project of the non-profit, nonpartisan Capital Research Center, "but receives almost 10 percent of its budget from federal, state, and local governments indirectly."
Once upon a time there may have been a plausible justification for NPR's government subventions. When it was founded more than half a century ago, NPR could accurately be said to be supplying news and educational content that listeners couldn't get anywhere else. That argument is utterly implausible today, when audio programming of every description can be found amid a vast array of outlets: terrestrial and satellite radio, on-demand broadcasters, podcasts, and audio downloads. If NPR were to vanish overnight, listeners would hardly be trapped in a cone of silence. They would simply "have to make do," as George F. Will remarked in 2017, "with America's 4,666 AM and 6,754 FM commercial stations, 437 satellite radio channels, perhaps 70,000 podcasts, and other Internet and streaming services."
At a time of trillion-dollar federal deficits and a national debt approaching $32 trillion, NPR's government subsidies cannot possibly be justified. That's particularly true when public radio attracts a fortune in private funding, from the donations made by innumerable "listeners like you," to the $135 million in corporate sponsorships it harvested last year. As of Dec. 31, NPR's balance sheet showed more than $780 million in assets, as against less than $270 million in liabilities.
I oppose any government funding of public radio and TV on First Amendment grounds: To my mind, neither Congress nor any state has a right or a legitimate reason to control, influence, or subsidize domestic media. But even people who believe Congress does have such power should be able to recognize by now that public broadcasting would be healthier and happier if, once and for all, it broke its addiction to taxpayer dollars.
This has nothing to do with NPR's pronounced left-wing tilt, however irritating it can sometimes be. Some of my best friends, to coin a phrase, work in public radio, and much of what they produce is first-rate. NPR and its affiliates have broken countless important news stories and generated thousands of hours of absorbing, intelligent, and illuminating content. But the same can also be said about innumerable other media outlets, left, right and nonpolitical. If The New York Times, the Christian Broadcasting Network, Bloomberg Radio, The Boston Globe, the Food Network, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Fox News Channel, The Wall Street Journal, the Salem Radio Network, and so many other broadcasters and publications can operate without being on the government dole, National Public Radio can too.
No one is going to lose any sleep because NPR has stopped tweeting. But if it irks public radio's honchos to be publicly identified as "government-funded media," they have a more effective remedy than giving Twitter the silent treatment. They could stop taking government funds. Millions of NPR listeners and supporters would step up to replace any lost revenue. And Elon Musk would have no choice but to remove that tag.
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What Clarence Thomas could learn from the Talmud
I have admired Clarence Thomas for years. His influence on Supreme Court jurisprudence has been marked by close fidelity to the Constitution and fearlessness in challenging the shibboleths of legal fashion. When he writes about racial matters, his words can be fierce and eloquent to the point of incandescence. His autobiography, "My Grandfather's Son," is a gripping memoir, overflowing with grit, gratitude, and brutal self-criticism. And he inspires deep affection even from colleagues with whom he routinely disagrees. "I just love the man," Justice Sonia Sotomayor has said of Thomas. "He has the same value towards human beings as I have, despite our differences."
It's because I think highly of Thomas that I'm so dismayed to learn that for at least two decades he and his wife have taken extraordinarily luxurious vacations from Harlan Crow, a Texas real estate magnate who is a major donor to conservative organizations with which Thomas and his wife are connected.
"Thomas has accepted luxury trips virtually every year from the Dallas businessman without disclosing them," ProPublica reported on April 5.
[H]e has vacationed on Crow's super-yacht around the globe. He flies on Crow's Bombardier Global 5000 jet. He has gone with Crow to the Bohemian Grove, the exclusive California all-male retreat, and to Crow's sprawling ranch in East Texas. And Thomas typically spends about a week every summer at Crow's private resort in the Adirondacks. . . .
These trips appeared nowhere on Thomas' financial disclosures.
One lavish nine-day journey to Indonesia in 2019, ProPublica calculated, may have been worth as much as half a million dollars.
Thomas may not have violated any law or ethics regulations in not disclosing these gifts. That hasn't stopped left-wing critics who detest him for his conservative views from accusing him of being a lawbreaker who ought to be impeached. But a longstanding loophole in the Ethics in Government Act — a loophole that was finally closed last month — exempted judges from having to disclose "personal hospitality of any individual." In a statement responding to the ProPublica story, Thomas said that when he joined the Supreme Court he "was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from a close personal friend, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable." He also described Crow and his wife as among his family's "dearest friends." That may be so. But they aren't lifelong friends. Thomas didn't become part of the Crows' social circle until he was already a Supreme Court justice.
One federal judge interviewed by CNN confirmed that the old regulations were "kind of confusing" and that "hospitality was never defined." Professor Stephen Gillers, a specialist in legal ethics at the New York University School of Law, told The New York Times: "The rules were very lax and tolerated circumvention, and now [with the exemption eliminated] we've taken a giant step away from that." Arguably, then, Thomas has not overstepped the strict boundaries of the ethics law.
But is that all that matters? Even if there was nothing strictly illegal about accepting such exorbitant gifts from a highly influential business mogul with a deep interest in moving American culture and law rightward, wasn't it manifestly ill-advised? As commentator Mona Charen asked, "Why didn't this give Thomas the willies?" Knowing how ready his ideological foes are to believe the worst about him, why would Thomas not recoil from accepting fantastically luxurious gifts from Crow? And having accepted them, why — if only in the interest of dotting every i and crossing every t — wouldn't he be ultrascrupulous about disclosing them?
Perhaps, as the Times indicated Sunday in an important editorial, it was because taking presents and trips from admirers, often very rich admirers, has become S.O.P. on the high court.
"Justice Thomas's indulgence is just the latest and most egregious example," the editorial noted, "of a weakness demonstrated by virtually every member of the court for decades, those nominated by Republican and Democratic presidents alike: a willingness to accept freebies, gifts, and junkets — both costly and modest — from people and groups who find it useful to be close to nine of the most powerful people in the United States." Justices Antonin Scalia and Stephen Breyer, for example, each accepted well over 200 trips to far-flung destinations during their years on the court.
Whether narrowly permitted or not, the impropriety of pocketing such bounties should be glaringly obvious. "When the court's members accept benefits from the nation's moneyed elite, no matter their politics," argued the Times, "it sends a signal that ordinary Americans without those resources are at a disadvantage."
As a deeply religious Christian with a strong grounding in the Bible, Thomas knows that Scripture warns judges not to "show partiality" or "accept a bribe." The sages of the Talmud, explicating those verses in a series of vignettes more than 16 centuries ago, emphasized the insidiousness of bestowing even the most modest gift or favor to a judge.
In one case, a judge named Rabbi Ishmael was scheduled to hear a case in which one of the litigants happened to be a tenant farmer on his land. Normally the man delivered his weekly rent — a basket of produce — on Friday, but since he had to come to court on Thursday anyway, he brought the week's payment with him. No one could have construed this as a bribe, since he was only delivering to his landlord the produce he owed him. Still, the judge recused himself and observed the trial from the sidelines.
As he did so, he realized that he was privately rooting for the tenant farmer to win.
"He said to himself: If [the litigant] wants he could claim this, and if he wants he could claim that" — in other words, he kept thinking of ways in which the tenant farmer could win his case. The psychological insight here is profound: Even a modest gesture of goodwill toward a judge — a benefit as trivial as a delivery of produce one day early — can alter how a judge thinks about a case. Can anyone believe that expensive trips and sumptuous hospitality, whether strictly illegal or not, have no impact on the mind of a judge? In modern Washington no less than in ancient Babylonia, judges are affected by such beneficence, no matter how sure they are of their own impartiality.
High court jurists get an annual salary of at least $265,600 plus very generous benefits. They get three months off each year and, upon retiring, a pension equal to 100 percent of their salary for life. They are endowed with enormous prestige and power. Any justice for whom that's not enough is free to resign. There is no excuse for any judge in America to be accepting opulent gifts from wealthy admirers, least of all a Supreme Court justice. Technically legal it may have been, but what Thomas has been doing is disgraceful.
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Cats, dogs, liberty
Reason magazine, the storied and lively libertarian journal whose motto is "Free Minds and Free Markets," has published any number of debates over the years on such sober and studious topics as whether the European Union was a mistake, whether democracy is the worst form of government (except for all the others), and whether Artificial Intelligence should be regulated.
But now, I'm happy to report, Reason has finally come up with a debate topic truly worthy of its mission. In the May issue of the magazine, Managing Editor Jason Russell and Features Editor Peter Suderman come out of their corners to do battle over the proposition that "Cats Are More Libertarian Than Dogs."
Here's a snippet of Russell's case for felines:
Cats don't ask the government to build them parks. They hardly ask their owners for any special space either. . . . Cats find comfort and joy in things humans and other animals have no interest in.
Cats, like libertarians, think for themselves. In the Netflix show The Sandman, one cat says to another, "I'd like to see anyone — prophet, God, or king — persuade 1,000 cats to do anything at the same time." What could possibly be more emblematic of a group of libertarians?
This is a clip of Suderman's canine defense:
When determining whether cats or dogs are more libertarian creatures, the behavior of the animal on its own is irrelevant. The libertarian project is the project of human civilization and human liberty. A world with fewer anarchic cats — or even, for that matter, no cats at all — and far greater human freedom would obviously be a far more libertarian world.
The question, then, is whether cats or dogs contribute more to human liberty. Framed that way, the answer is quite clear: Dogs have been agents of choice and freedom for thousands of years. Humanity is happier, safer, more prosperous, and more peaceful because of dogs.
As they say, read the whole thing. But for the record, cats are awesome.
 Davy Jones, who holds the position of Senior Cat in the Jacoby household, helps give Arguable one last proofreading. |
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What I Wrote Then
25 years ago on the op-ed page
From "Horror at Ebensee," April 2, 1998:
Markus Jakubovic, a Czechoslovak Jew, entered the Nazi concentration camp at Ebensee, Austria, in March 1945. By that point he had already been through Auschwitz, witnessed the murder of his family, and survived a death march out of Poland. Ebensee was meant to finish him off. By V-E Day, May 8, he was close to death.
Meanwhile, William V. McDermott, a young Boston surgeon, was serving in the mobile 30th Field Hospital of Patton's 3rd Army. By 1945, he had been in the Normandy invasion, at Verdun and the Bulge, and through the Siegfried Line. On May 8, his medical unit -- about a dozen doctors -- received orders to join the 3rd Cavalry, which was on its way to Ebensee. What he found there he described in vivid letters home -- and now in a gripping new book, A Surgeon in Combat.
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The Last Line
"'Harking back to this voyage, I think it was a failure upon the whole, and a costly failure; but,' he said, laughing with joy at the thought, 'I am so happy to be homeward-bound, and I am so happy, so very happy, to be alive.'" — Patrick O'Brian, The Wine-Dark Sea (1993)
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(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe).
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