MAJOR ELECTION NEWS – AT 9:12 A.M.:  While most Americans think about the congressional midterms, another really important election campaign is underway.  On this the fate of the nation may depend:

On Sunday, the White House Correspondents' Association will vote on who gets the front-row UPI seat long held by Helen Thomas, and two liberal groups have come out urging the WHCA to vote for NPR instead of Fox.

Leading the charge is CREDO Action, a liberal activist mobile phone company that has gone after Fox in the past. The group launched a petition on Wednesday that reads: “FOX News is a right-wing propaganda operation, not a legitimate news organization. Award the seat vacated by Helen Thomas to NPR, which has provided public interest coverage of the presidency and the White House for almost four decades.”

MoveOn.org issued a letter to members supporting the petition, calling Fox “a tool in the right-wing propaganda machine.”

WHCA President David Jackson, of USA Today, declined to comment on the matter, and Fox News did not reply to a request for comment.

But NPR issued a statement Friday trying to distance itself from the petitions: “NPR would like to make it clear that we are not involved in any way in the petitions now circulating that encourage the White House Correspondents Association to select NPR for the lead White House correspondent seat…We have no position on the petitions, and no comment on the other media organizations that are competing for the seat.”

Frankly, it would be improper for NPR to have the lead seat in a forum designed to question the president of the United States.  NPR is a federal operation, though it has private contributors. 

The drive for NPR is being waged by those on the left who would have no problem with federally funded news programming, similar to Britain's.  As they say, that's not the American way.

Get this: 

The group has gathered 250,000 signatures on its petition in the last three days, she said, and overnighted boxes of the signed petitions to WHCA officers on Thursday.

“None of them have responded,” she said. “But we are hoping that when they get the boxes, they will respond, because we also sent a coupon for a free pint of ice cream."

COMMENT:  Oh, just the symbolism is hilarious.  Bribing journalists.  With ice cream, no less.  And only a pint. 

The left does things in such small ways.

August 1, 2010