Who Appeared with Brit Hume Wednesday Night?
By MassNews Staff
            Only the two regular panelists appeared on the Brit Hume show Wednesday night, Mort Kondracke and Fred Barnes, along with a "regular guest," the very liberal Juan Williams from National Public Radio.
            There's still no sign of the Boston Globe reporter, Nina Easton, who has been seen as an analyst on the Fox News network lately.
            We're discovering that the question of who appears with Brit as a panelist every night is very important to many liberals who actively express their views. They are not shy in contacting either Fox or National Public Radio if they do not like who is appearing on the show. There are even organizations which are constantly monitoring Brit's show and reporting their dissatisfactions.
            Our uneasiness at MassNews on Tuesday ("Is Fox News Dumping Brit Hume?") was undoubtedly the first time that Fox has ever heard from unhappy conservatives who were thrilled when Hume was put in charge. However, we cannot rest on our laurels. We have given no thought to the pressures that are being put on Fox.

Liberals Put Enormous Pressure on Fox News
            The show is "fair and balanced" as advertised by Fox. The two regulars on the show, Fred Barnes and Mort Kondracke, are certainly diverse. Among other things, Mort was senior editor of The New Republic from 1977-91 and was the Washington bureau chief of Newsweek. That should satisfy anyone of his credentials as a liberal.
            The third panelist changes each night with a large number coming from the radical liberal, NPR. That tax-supported organization is still being funded by the citizens of the country even though most disagree with its radical stands.
            However, if either Juan Williams or Mara Liasson deviate from the radical NPR's litmus test of what is permitted from their employees, they will be taken to the woodshed.
            Liasson has even been issued a public warning from the Ombudsman at NPR after being charged with deviating from the official doctrine.
            (Although we are linking to the full text of the Ombudsman's report, we must note that when we tried to retrieve the report today, we were told that we could not do so unless we disclosed who we were and paid a fee.)
            Not only has Liasson been dissected by the NPR's Ombudsman, there are rumors out there that she is a Republican. She was born in New York City in 1955 (as Mara Bella Carfoni) but has ties to New England, being a graduate of Brown University and having been a reporter for the newspaper on Martha's Vineyard.  
            In October 2002, while appearing on a panel on Fox News, she denounced a congressmen who criticized President Bush while visiting Iraq. "These guys are a disgrace. Look, everyone knows it's ... Politics 101 that you don't go to an adversary country, an enemy country, and badmouth the United States, its policies and the president of the United States. I mean, these guys ought to, I don't know, resign."
           Following complaints from NPR listeners, the NPR Ombudsman, Jeffrey Dvorkin, reviewed her comments.
           Liasson received a Bagehot Fellowship in Economics and Business Journalism and from September 1988 to June 1989 took a leave of absence to attend Columbia University in New York. Shortly thereafter, she returned to NPR as its congressional correspondent. During her tenure she has covered three presidential elections — in 1992, 1996 and 2000. Prior to her current assignment, Liasson was NPR's White House correspondent for all eight years of the Clinton administration. In 1991, Liasson spent three weeks in Amman, Jordan, where she reported on the aftermath of the Gulf War for NPR.
            Juan Williams has also been the object of complaints from NPR fans that he panders too much and is not caustic enough when he appears on the Brit Hume show.