NPR Hatemonger Wins Pulitzer Prize

...because what is more insightful and enlightening than depicting conservatives, libertarians, and ordinary Americans as knuckle-dragging troglodytes?

The story starts with an animated cartoon on the National Public Radio website, entitled "Learn to Speak Tea Bag." Yes, it is an ugly as it sounds. I'll let Byron York carry you the rest of the way:

The cartoon, by satirist Mark Fiore, was a mock instructional video in which viewers were told that if they were "distracted by the confusing words of other languages" -- for example, by the calm and rational discussion of health care reform -- they could instead learn to speak "Tea Bag." At that point, a figure began to yell, "Socialist! Socialist!"

"If you're having trouble understanding the words of others or being understood yourself, use Tea Bag's stronger, more descriptive words," the cartoon narrator said. The figure then yelled, "Nazi! Nazi! Nazi!" The video took brief shots at Republican Reps. John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and Michele Bachmann before envisioning a "paranoid future" in which people speak Tea Bag and walk around screaming "Nazi! -- Socialist! -- Baby killer!"

"Tea Bag," the video concluded. "Because other languages are just too hard."

Written with all the intelligence and depth of knowledge one would expect from an angry college freshman, or perhaps a writer for MSNBC. Even NPR execs got skittish, and went so far as to label the piece as "Opinion", in case any of their superintelligent readers got a bit confused on that whole fact/fiction thing. Even NPR's ombudsman, one Alicia Shepard, admitted some discomfort with the item in question:

"Chief among them is it doesn't fit with NPR values, one of which is a belief in civility and civil discourse," Shepard wrote. "Fiore is talented, but this cartoon is just a mean-spirited attack on people who think differently than he does and doesn't broaden the debate. It engages in the same kind of name-calling the cartoon supposedly mocks."

Which apparently delights the Pulitzer committee to no end, as they just presented Fiore with the Pulitzer Prize for cartooning:

For a distinguished cartoon or portfolio of cartoons characterized by originality, editorial effectiveness, quality of drawing and pictorial effect, in print or online or both....

Awarded to Mark Fiore, self syndicated, for his animated cartoons appearing on SFGate.com, the San Francisco Chronicle Web site, where his biting wit, extensive research and ability to distill complex issues set a high standard for an emerging form of commentary.

Is reducing the 58% of Americans opposed to ObamaCare to an idiot mob shrieking "Baby-killers! Socialists!" "biting wit"? Is it an example of "extensive research"? And while I will agree that this is a "complex issue", how does characterizing opposition to radical legislation as merely the caterwauling of buffoons "distill" this issue, or bring any clarity to it? And this is a "high standard"? As opposed to what? Der Stürmer?

It doesn't, of course. The Pulitzer Prize committee simply agrees with Fiore's take on independents and conservatives, and is rewarding him for making the most vulgar version of their view of others appear to be respectable by publishing in under the NPR banner.

The Pulitzer goes the way of the Nobel Prize. Awards for self-loathing Americans and hardcore lefties only.

Me, I'd rather have a People's Choice Award....



Update: Liberal douchebag Fiore keeps the hate up via his Twitter account: