fredjperry;

I sometimes do feel like a "troll" on The Takeaway's website. That is, I feel like an outsider, with a contrarian view that is completely outside what is the accepted view.

I'm not even a far-right Republican. But The Takeaway's production and world view are so far to the doctrinaire left, with no equivalent balance from the right, that it might be sadly true that listeners like me are "trolls" when it comes to public radio.

That's a big problem for public radio. So proud of its racial, gender and ethnic diversity; public radio often fails badly in terms of ideological diversity.

Last year, we saw a handful of public scandals involving public radio personalities who linked themselves with the Occupy movement. The public scandals are surely akin to the tip of an iceberg; for every public radio who got in trouble for openly allying themselves, there must be 20 whose involvement was less public and not violative of network policy.

Has there ever been a scnadal involving any public radio figure who was involved in a conflict of interest or public alliance problem on the right? A spouse who was employed by a political administration? (Michelle Norris) A spouse whose husband was a left-wing journalist? (Brooke Gladstone) Or a spouse whose husband was an attorney with a special interest group on the left? (Linda Wertheimer) Wildly partisan statements on television? (Nina Totenberg)

By themselves, none of these incidents is so troubling. Taken all together, they are startlingly representative of the longstanding institutional left-wing bias of public radio.

Wasn't the European model developed by Americans because we knew we could get away with making a more balanced system in a devastated land? Americans are smart enough to come up with a healthcare system that's balanced for both provider and recipient. But when you have the corporations slanting the outcome to favor the "profit uber alles" philosophy there's no way anything we come up with will be balanced.

The lobbyists have convinced a part of our society into thinking their personal good health is assured for the future and that the corporations are here to help us unconditionally.

@Charles: Really? "...undermine public opinion?" Hitting all the Fox talking points there, aren't ya? I wonder if you trawl Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh or that gruesome Anne Coulter with such an accusatory attitude.

I suppose only Republicans and their talking-heads can undermine public opinion for things like the "Patriot Act," unjust wars, ill-advised pipelines and blaming the Financial Crisis on regular Americans.

T-R-O-L-L

This entire interview was presented under the premise that Daschle was a kind of retired elder statesman.

In fact, Daschle is a lobbyist with the influential Washington law firm and lobbying firm DLA Piper. Which is one of the largest donor bases for the Obama Administration.

The Takeaway said nothing about Daschle's history as a failed cabinet nominee, his income tax difficulties that derailed his nomination to Health and Human Services, where he'd have been one of the President's point-men on health care in Congress.

Instead of all of that information, none of it supplied to the audience, The Takeaway simply presented Daschle as a kind of bipartisan elder statesman, when in fact he is one of Washington's consummate partisan-insider influence peddlers. With his current mission being part of the Democrat-left's nationalized effort to soften up public opinion to undermine the Supreme Court in the widely-expected event that the individual mandate is found to have been an illegal extension of Congress' commerce clause power.

Against their conscience? I pay for a lot of things against my conscience. Tanks, missiles, guns, etc...

Mr. Daschle is a very decent man, I wonder what he would say about forcing people to pay for things against their conscience.

America would be better served by a European economic model, which would sacrifice some efficiency for greater equity. The paradigm in this country equates a financial ideal with an ethical one, while millions of uninsured, unemployed Americans bare the brunt of our arrogance.

The constitution is trampled on daily in this country, whether it be for supposed security or in protecting property right, but heaven forbid we attempt to help our fellow man. That would be a bridge too far!

We all agree that we need health care reform. But the present plan is very unacceptable to many people for well known reasons, so let's hope it's declared unconstitutional.