Perhaps the way it annoys the most is by claiming, at pledge time, to be doing its listeners such an incredible favor by being "sane", "balanced", "comprehensive" and other self-congratulatory descriptives.
The thing is, when you compare what NPR tells you against the wider facts, now available via the Internet, you find they're really a bunch of velvet voiced toadies.
Any NPR staff lurkers out there? Achtung baby! You suck-diddly-uck.
Why am I ranting about NPR? Well, because of the curious story of Iraq's new Prime Minister appointee, a Mr. Iyad Allawi.
In the NPR version of events, which I listened to while driving the other day, the "moderate" Mr. Allawi was selected by the Iraqi Governing Council in a "move which surprised the Coalition Provisional Authority". To me, this seemed like an odd thing to say since the IGC is an American creation and depends upon American support for its existence. How likely is it, I wondered, for these folks to make 'surprising moves'?
Of course, as it turns out, there was no suprise at all (at least not for Washington) and NPR, with the panache and accuracy of a drunk falling down a flight of steps after the intial misstep, got it all wrong - easy to do when the Pentagon is your sole information source (well, there are a few field reporters but who listens to them?).
.d.
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UN sidelined in choice of Iraqi leader
White House struggles to defend the selection of candidate who is hardly known in his own country
Peter Beaumont and Luke Harding in Baghdad, Paul Harris in New York and Gaby Hinsliff Sunday May 30, 2004
The Observer
In a leafy pavement cafe in Baghdad's Karrada district yesterday, the men drinking tea in the shade and debating amiably were adamant about one thing: no one would ever accept an American-appointed politician to lead Iraq, especially one with close ties to the CIA.
There is a deep distrust of the Iraqi Governing Council as an instrument of the US occupation and equally deep distrust of its choice as the first Prime Minister of the new government to take power on 30 June: Iyad Allawi.
Yesterday the troubled issue of sovereignty in Iraq was in turmoil as it emerged that it was not only ordinary Iraqis who had been sidelined in Allawi's appointment, but the United Nations, Downing Street and even parts of the Bush administration.
Despite efforts to put the best gloss on Allawi's nomination, it was clear that a UN process to select an Iraqi leader had largely collapsed, placing the decision in the hands of the former exile groups that dominate the governing council - an outcome the UN had said it was determined to avoid.
The UN, Britain and America have long insisted that the process - headed by UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi - was as crucial as the handover of sovereignty.
The intended aim was to decide only after the widest consultation, following Brahimi's insistence that candidates should not simply be confined to a council handpicked by the US, often from groups with little popular support within Iraq. Brahimi himself had stressed he would prefer a technocrat from outside a body where 18 out of the 25 members hold foreign passports, including Allawi who is a British citizen. Yet after powerful lobbying among its members, Allawi was nominated on Friday.
He heads the Iraqi National Accord and is a long term protegé of the CIA and MI6 who has spent much of his life in exile.
The White House appeared to struggle yesterday as it defended the way he was selected, claiming he had emerged as a 'popular candidate' although he is little know by Iraqis.
'The United States did not pick anybody as its candidate,' an official said: 'But when we saw the political momentum that he was generating day by day, we thought he would be an excellent Prime Minister.'
Downing Street, which was left out of the loop on the appointment, put a brave face on it, saying the government would not expect to have been consulted, despite its officials having been in touch with Brahimi on a daily basis. 'It was a matter for the UN and interim coalition government, not for the British or American governments,' said a senior Downing Street source. 'It is Brahimi's job to work with them to produce a recommended team of people. The last thing that would be appropriate is saying, "We prefer X rather than Y".'
The emergence of Allawi, an enthusiastic former Baathist turned opposition leader, followed the blocking by him and other council members of Brahimi's prefered choice, Hussain Shahristani, who had been offered the job but was forced to withdraw.
Shahristani, 62, a scientist jailed by Saddam for more than a decade after he refused to help build nuclear weapons, had not been active in Iraq's internecine opposition exile politics.
Council members 'feel they are a kind of club, and this was a person who is outside their club. He couldn't be a candidate because he cannot get the support of this club,' an aide to Shahristani told the Washington Post.
His withdrawal last Thursday left the field open to Allawi, who had been lobbying furiously for the job.
Yet it is what happened next that is most murky. Although Allawi's name is understood to have been on the list of candidates under consideration by Brahimi, the UN envoy appears to have been bounced into accepting it by joint pressure from the US and the council.
Although some officials in Baghdad were expecting the council to leak Allawi's name on Friday, the news appears not to have reached Downing Street, the UN or the US State Department where officials were caught on the hop by the an announcement that lacked the imprimatur of the world body.
It caused a flurry of hurried phone calls between Brahimi, his boss Kofi Annan and the UN in New York. 'This is not how we expected things to happen,' said one UN official in a mark of UN's unhappiness with the way that it felt it had been outmanouevered.
Annan's spokesman, Fred Eckhard, refused numerous opportunities to say the UN, Brahimi or Annan 'welcomed' the decision. Instead he said they 'respected' it. 'I want to stick very carefully to the wording,' Eckhard said.
The messy announcement is not simply a question of amour propre for the UN. British officials regarded it as crucial in persuading ordinary Iraqis that a dramatic change was in train with the transfer of sovereignty. Many observers now fear that yet another critical opportunity has been thrown away.
[...]
full at --
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4935708-103550,00.html >