Skunk At The Garden Party 2 (NPR Says Sorry for Adam Davidson...)
Rush & Newt Are Winning, and Adam Davidson is still holding down the fort for the bellicose right over at NPR.
As a follow up to my May 15th post, I wanted to point out that NPR's Ombudswoman Alicia C. Shepard has written a complete dressing-down of Adam Davidson's malpractice (I mean interview) committed on Elizabeth Warren ("Planet Money Meltdown").
Many listeners said they were deeply disappointed in Davidson. Some threatened to never donate again to NPR. Others have demanded that Davidson be sanctioned or fired. It's not necessary. He is contrite. He knows how unprofessionally he behaved. And NPR supervisors probably will be watching his work more carefully in the future.
Planet Money is far too valuable a resource for explaining today's strange and hard-to-fathom financial information to let one botched interview derail it. But judging by the volume of criticism, it will take some time for Davidson to earn back the trust and respect initially (and deservedly) showered on him.
It is nice to see NPR kinda apologize for him, but I'm not feeling like he deserves much benefit of the doubt going forward. And, IMO, Planet Money is unlistenable with him around.
In fact, his non-apology needs an apology as well. In this follow-up post-mortem that Shepard links to, Davidson never apologizes. Instead, he attacks Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi for picking an "obvious partisan" (paraphrase) like Liz Warren for the TARP overseer post in the first place. Honestly, this follow up interview sounds to me like Davidson thinks family economics & personal finance is still merely a "trivial, woman's issue" (my words). Warren's "pet issue" (his words) that should remain in her academic work where it belongs, not on Wall Street - where all the men are oh-so-serious, apparently. (Aside: Dave Ramsey is a huge conservative. His Achilles heel is that he can't help himself from spouting FauxNews talking points, but he is 1000% in Warren's camp. Family economic health is bi-partisan.)
Clearly, IMHO, Planet Money can't rehabilitate itself with Davidson still spitting his Andrew Ross Sorkin-like, CEO brown-nosing, Reaganomics stock phrases.
This whole episode illustrates E.J. Dionne's brilliant Op/Ed today. It's the anatomy of how the business right dominates the public discussion, and silences intelligent people for "appearing liberal". I don't think they succeeded in this case, but Davidson was trying to radicalize Professor Warren's image.
I couldn't get through the whole thing, but even after listening to part of it, I decided that Elizabeth Warren deserves a medal for spending the better part of a day with that guy.
June 5, 2009 1:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
that guy
Somehow I associate the replacement of Bob Edwards with that twerp (Steve Inskeep) and his chirpy sidekick (Renee Montaine) with the utter collapse of N(ot) P(rogressive) R(adio).
It sucks so bad these days that it makes the baby Jesus cry.
June 5, 2009 4:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
I hate listening to Steve Inskeep in the morning.
June 5, 2009 12:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Doesn't sound like victory, does it?
June 5, 2009 3:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
My feeling is that Davidson is smart, excellent at explaining fairly complicated economic concepts,and sufficiently unaware of his own limitations so that NPR should do him the favor of providing adult supervision.
I complained some weeks ago when Davidson's capsule biography of Keynes ,during the regular news bulletin , caually referred to him as an anti semite.
Davidson personally replied saying he couldn't understand my objection.
I replied citing Keynes moving description (quoted at length by Skidelsky)of a warm and influential friendship with a German Jewish banker extending from their risky alliance during Paris 1919 all the way to Hitler. (When BTW Keynes immediately became a relentless critic of Hitler's anti semitism.) Davidson replied that was like many anti semites who defend themselves by pointing to a single Jewish friend.
To be fair, Keynes himself acknowledged that at the outset he was surprised to find this Jew was becoming one of his closest personal friends.
I replied that one could add at least Leonard Wolff to the count:another Keynes friend beginning when he had lunch most weekend with Keynes family during their years at Cambridge. But then dropped the matter.
Almost certainly Davidson simply hasn't been exposed to upper middle class England's long standing use of racial epithets as simply a non judgemental desciption. Jew, Hindoo,Paddy,various terms for blacks,asians, the Welsh, the Scots, were in habitual use without carrying the same implication of inferiority as in the US. As with 19th century Tories who were quite happy to make :"that Jew fella Disraeli" their leader. Something we have yet to do.Or the British Clubs with Jews,Hindoos and Kaffir members when the New York Athletic Club was still firmly restricted.(as in the Woody Allen joke about the Moose who goes to the cocktail party.
Mingles. Scores.Etc.)
See Trollope's novels in which Jewish characters are regularly introduced dismissively but as the plot unfolds behave impeccably unlike the vast majority of the others.
Never pointed out by Trollope.If you don't get it, you don't get it.
You can't know everything, particularly if you're a young Adam Davidson. Which is why someone should save him from himself.
June 5, 2009 2:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
There are entertainment shows on NPR, and all that Ralph Lauren-ish pseudo sophistication, but as an information source? A while back I started routinely hallucinating their announcers saying, "This is Empty Hour News."
June 5, 2009 3:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Davison
is
a
tool.
June 5, 2009 8:24 PM | Reply | Permalink