Quick: Ever heard NPR label a single radical leftist as "crazy"?
Tancredo calmly responded by telling Elliott she was mistaken on one point. "Well, first of all, when you said I called ourselves The Crazies. Actually, the press dubbed us that." Tancredo explained that's because his conservative bloc of legislators were trying to cut taxes, which seemed crazy to Democrats and their sympathizers in the "objective" press.
Then consider the other "crazy" statements used by NPR. Tancredo said Miami is like a Third World country. That's typical of Tancredo's rhetoric on immigration. But when he was attacked by Florida Gov. Jeb Bush as naive, he retracted the line a bit, saying Miami could be happy with its cultural and ethnic diversity, but "when diversity is worshipped to the detriment of assimilation," it can undermine the civic culture. All that nuance is lost on NPR in its talent for drive-by journalism.
It also sounds shocking to talk about bombing Mecca "in response to terrorist attacks." But Tancredo was being asked on a Florida radio show how America might respond if Islamic terrorists inflicted a nuclear attack on our country, which is a much more dramatic context than NPR's shortcut question implied. He talked about "taking out holy sites," which might not be popular. But isn't that also what Islamic insurgents did to the Shia shrine at Samarra in Iraq a year ago?
Back then, NPR didn't describe the actual bombers of Islamic shrines as "crazy," or even as "fierce" like Tancredo. That would apparently be judgmental. Adjectives were reserved for the "grim" outlook for America.
It would also be unlike NPR to use the "crazy" lines on long-shot Democratic presidential candidates -- like moon-orbiting Dennis Kucinich. Imagine NPR recycling his lines, like his calling for a Department of Peace, since "the energy of the stars becomes us. We become the energy of the stars. Stardust and spirit unite, and we begin: One with the universe."
But NPR has avoided a profile of Kucinich since he declared his run for the presidency in December. The day it does that profile, however, you can bet it'll call him "passionate."