Abstract

Editorials

The article focuses on issues related to politics in the United States. All things large are small. That's the motto of the U.S. President Bill Clinton. His fifth State of the Union Message was the moment to attach drywall to Clinton's inaugural daydream of a Twenty-First Century United States, a nation where all families enjoy decent livings, where cities are free of crime, and where every child is cared for and well educated. In addition to education, the President had two other hot picks. On campaign finance reform, he challenged the U.S. Congress to pass by July 4, 1997 the problematic but better-than-nothing McCain-Feingold legislation. The right has long viewed an independent public broadcasting service (PBS) as a problem. U.S. President Richard Nixon targeted it in the early seventies, and U.S. President Ronald Reagan significantly reduced its finding. In the 1980's, Congressional funding for public television fell from 26 percent of its overall budget to just 16 percent, while corporate funding increased from less than 11 percent to almost 17 percent at the end of the decade. Still, the conservatism that derived from increased corporate funding failed to mollify the right, and a concerted effort to transform PBS into a right-wing echo chamber began in earnest in 1992.