The following exchange was broadcast this morning (6 June, 2006) on Morning Edition (NPR's morning news and entertainment show). Five minutes were devoted to Renee Montagne's interview with the Mayor of Toronto, David Miller. Montagne, following her usual
modus operandi, leaps on a chance to make her ignorant, stupid, xenophobic, Bushist points.
Make the jump for the transcript, which I typed out just for you.
The interview can be found here:
http://www.npr.org/... . (Text page with link to audio.)
The interview starts off with the usual journalistic stuff: When? What?
Montagne: When did you learn about the investigation into this alleged plot, and what do you know about the evidence against these men?
Mayor Miller: I learned of the investigation several months ago.
But soon Montagne adopts a different voice, halting, pitch raised, a little arch -- you know that voice, the one bad female reporters use when they want to get conspiratorial with male interviewees -- a sort of "just between us" voice:
Montagne: [1:57] (Voice rising) What are you hearing, as mayor, from the Muslim community there in Toronto?
Mayor Miller: Our Muslim community is very active, very involved in the city -- a very peaceful community. I've spoken with a number of the leaders of the Muslim community over the weekend. They are very shocked by what happened. You know in Islam if you kill one person you kill everybody. It's a very peaceful religion, and they're as shocked as Torontonians are, and ...
Montagne jumps on this. JUMPS. Mayor Miller corrects himself.
Montagne: Well. Well, they sort of are Torontonians.
Mayor Miller: Sorry! They're as shocked as every Torontonians is. And I think one of the concerns the Muslim community has, which I share, is how could this small group of young men become so disaffected and alienated to fall into this hard-line ideology.
Questions any middle-class society -- any parents -- would ask. But Montagne, sensing blood, moves in for the kill. She abandons any pretense at journalism, and sets up, what to her must be an obvious syllogism: if you have open immigration, if you have a liberal society, if you provide for the downtrodden, you will suffer terrorism. Note that in the middle of tripping over her tongue, she almost can't get out "social services". As Mark Crispin Miller pointed out in his analysis of Bush's lying ("Cruel and Unusual: The Bush/Cheney World Order"), it is when they are substituting an acceptable phrase for an unutterable thought that these people's minds stutter.
Montagne: Well, interesting, because, you know, you know, you wonder, what, what can you do, to keep people from becoming alienated. Canada has a very open society, very liberal immigration policy, very good, um, social, ah, social services, uh, uh, are you at a loss for what to do now?
Mayor MIller deflects this taint, but Montagne is not to be turned away. She interupts him in order to insist on her (mis)reading of the cause of the (foiled) terrorist plot. To his credit, he brings up an example that anyone but a right-wing hack would have considered before pressing the point.
Mayor Miller: Well, you know all the things you just mentioned are reasons why our city and our country work. We are very proud of our diversity. More than half of the people who live in Toronto, including myself, were not born in Canada. And I think that's why Canada works. We don't expect --
Montagne: (Interrupts) Although it didn't work -- uh, it didn't work in this case! If it's true.
Mayor Miller: We don't expect these kind of occurrences, exactly because of our public services, because of our diversity, because of our mutual respect for people of all backgrounds, and I, I don't ... There's no easy answer, but I think that's the key question: How did this fairly small group of young men become so radical. And the parallel I'd draw with the United States is Oklahoma City. Timothy McVeigh had become very radicalized, and I think the same questions could be asked, and that's the question we're going to be asking ourselves and working to address over the coming months.
Thusly does one -- calmly and politely -- with Canadian style -- repel the forces of ignorance and xenophobia -- at least for a few seconds.
Montagne still presses forwards. Only a few seconds left for her, a journalist, to MAKE HER POINT.
Montagne: Well just in the couple of seconds we have left, if you would, I mean how, in a sense, sad are you, given that Canadians are, I don't know, maybe think of themselves as better than this?
Mayor Miller: Well, we are all shocked and saddened. I think the positive thing is, are, that our police service and our intelligence service worked so well together that we know that we're safe, but we're not going to allow this to compromise our fundamental values, and our fundamental values in Canada are respect for everyone -- we're a welcoming country, and all communities, particularly the Muslim community, contribute very strongly to that ...
Montagne: Fine. Thank-
Mayor Miller: ... vibrant city ...
Montagne: Thank you very much. David MIller is the mayor of Toronto, the Canadian city said to be one of the targets of the terrorist plot uncovered last weekend. You are listening to Morning Edition, from NPR news.
NPR has been in decline for some years, certainly hastened since Bush and his harpies took control of our treasury. NPR as we knew it is dead. Long live NPR. Renee Montagne, however, is no journalist, and should not receive a dime of money to impersonate one.