Apparently children's education hasn't declined enough, so now the conservatives in the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor-HHS-Education and Related Agencies have eliminated funding for children's programming in PBS and local public television stations.

Lawson continued: “The proposed elimination of funding for Ready To Learn, a vital educational program that serves tens of millions of American kids, is nothing short of punitive.” Ready To Learn is an innovative early learning partnership between PBS, local public television stations and the U.S. Department of Education. Ready To Learn integrates, at no cost to consumers, commercial-free children’s educational television and online resources with community outreach to help parents and educators prepare young children for success in school. Award-winning Ready To Learn television programs include Arthur, DragonTales, Clifford, Between the Lions, Reading Rainbow, Sesame Street, Maya & Miguel, and Postcards from Buster.

Lawson continued: “In previous years, the highly successful Ready To Learn program received strong bipartisan support. Even the Bush Administration appreciates the benefits of this program and recommended level funding of $23 million. So, there clearly was no cost-cutting mandate that would justify what the subcommittee did today.” Postcards from Buster, a series funded through Ready To Learn, was the subject of controversy earlier this year.

Meanwhile, the conservatives are ready to break yet another tradition and politicize PBS like never before:

A former co-chairman of the Republican National Committee is the leading candidate to take over the agency that funds public broadcasting, sparking new concerns among broadcasters about conservative influence over National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting Service programming.

Patricia de Stacy Harrison, a high-ranking official at the State Department, is one of two candidates for the top job at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and is the favored candidate of the CPB's chairman, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, according to people close to the search. The CPB is a congressionally chartered agency that directs taxpayer funds to PBS, NPR and hundreds of radio and TV stations.

So what's the big deal?

Harrison, who has been assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs since October 2001, did not return calls seeking comment. She has been an entrepreneur (she founded with her husband and later sold a Washington lobbying and public relations firm, E. Bruce Harrison Co., that specialized in representing companies with environmental issues), but has no experience in public broadcasting.

Harrison has been appointed to jobs in the State and Commerce departments by President George H.W. Bush and the current President Bush. She was co-chairman of the Republican National Committee from 1997 until January 2001, helping to raise money for Republican candidates, including George W. Bush.

Not only that, she's an advocate of the fake news reports the White House has been putting out as pro-government propaganda:

In her State Department role, Harrison has praised the work of the department's Office of Broadcasting Services, which in early 2002 began producing feature reports, some coordinated by the White House, that promoted the administration's arguments for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. The reports were distributed free to domestic and international TV stations. In testimony before Congress last year, Harrison said the Bush administration regarded these "good news" segments as "powerful strategic tools" for swaying public opinion.

I don't see how anybody can see such overt politicizing of public broadcasting as a good thing. Is PBS to become the mouthpiece for the party who happens to be in power at the time? What's more, do our children really need to miss out on what's been a terrific alternative source of learning, just to pacify political vendettas?

"The government shouldn't be in broadcasting anyway. Leave it to the free market," some will say. But when it comes to our kids, the alternatives to Sesame Street are first-person shooters. Now instead of watching Big Bird, our kids will learn how to shoot him. Just lovely.

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