God Forbid Anybody Watch PBS

That's Diane Rehm's position, anyway:

A researcher secretly retained by the chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to monitor liberal bias in public radio and television set his sights on several media personalities, including Bill Moyers, Tucker Carlson, Tavis Smiley, David Brancaccio and Diane Rehm, according to documents made public Thursday.

Senator Byron Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, released 50 pages of what he called the "work product" of Fred Mann, a researcher who has been connected to conservative journalism centers and who was hired by the corporation's chairman, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson. Mr. Dorgan pronounced the work "a little nutty" and a sham.

The documents do not form a complete report, but are instead a string of synopses of public radio and television programs, accompanied by charts analyzing the political leanings of the guests. The central conclusion appears to have been that most public radio and television guests were liberal, and that even those who were conservative were critical of President Bush.

The research, which Mr. Dorgan said cost taxpayers $14,700, sent ripples throughout the public broadcast community, where journalists and executives - who believed until Thursday that the review was limited to "Now," with Bill Moyers - seemed stunned to learn they were also being scrutinized.

"Is it being done to somehow force public broadcasting into some kind of retreat?" asked Ms. Rehm, who has been host of "The Diane Rehm Show," a news and interview program, on public radio for 25 years. "Is it done to frighten people to somehow alert them to the fact that they are being watched?"