Would it be fair to say that the newspaper you're currently reading has a timidly center-left political philosophy because it publishes the timidly center-left column you're currently reading?

Of course not.

Most of the newspapers that publish this column -- though, let me emphasize, not all -- qualify in my book as rabidly right-wing. This column could well be the only centrist, leftist or timid thing about them.

So, there's this right-winger named Kenneth Tomlinson whom the Republicans have put in as chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which oversees public television and radio, supposedly to insulate them from Congress.

He went out and hired his own consultant to prove that the Public Broadcasting System is liberally biased because it has one program -- called "Now," formerly led by the sanctimonious Bill Moyers -- that the consultant found through weeks of study to be liberally biased.

I could have saved him the money. Moyers spouts left-wing things. That's his deal.

Tomlinson, of course, is not politically biased, since he worked in Republican Steve Forbes' presidential campaign.

His request that PBS start running a show in which the right-wing editorialists and columnists for The Wall Street Journal sit around and compare their gradations of Republican extremism -- that's not bias, but balance, you see.

His pressuring to get two conservatives hired as PBS "ombudsmen" is balance as well, apparently.

Tomlinson is wrong on so many counts. We'll examine as many as space reasonably allows.

First, I've seen conservatives interviewed on "Now." Richard Viguerie, called the very father of modern conservatism, had a friendly chat one night with Moyers. Viguerie's main point was that if George W. Bush won -- as he subsequently did -- the conservatives would declare a conservative civil war to impose their agenda once and for all and get government made a lot smaller. Not much has happened on that, so far as I can tell.

Second, a network's balance -- like a newspaper's balance -- is based not on individual commentary features, but its news product. Public broadcasting's news fairness should be judged by "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" and "All Things Considered," both eminently professional and fair.

Third, a network is not made liberal -- just as this newspaper isn't -- by giving space or time to one poor chap who is liberal, or might be on some days.

Fourth, "Now," up to and including its current post-Moyers incarnation, engages in investigative reporting -- albeit with an attitude. The Wall Street Journal program Tomlinson touts is several people sitting stiffly around a table agreeing with each other broadly and congratulating their nuanced differences.

Fifth, Tomlinson commits the very thing of which he accuses the news professionals -- applying a personal political bias and trying to influence programming decisions to reflect that bias. He would begin a cycle of propaganda: The party in charge makes PBS programming decisions.

Sixth, if you want imbalance, get a load of this: Some local PBS affiliates, including the one where I live, purchase and air "The McLaughlin Group," which, I know, is not a PBS-produced program.

It's a privately produced storied screamfest in which, usually, four male Neanderthals including the frightful Pat Buchanan and Newt Gingrich's old spokesman, Tony Blankley, hold up the right while Eleanor Clift tries her darndest to get a lonely screeched word in edgewise from the center-left.

If Tomlinson were the real champion of balance, he'd suggest that PBS affiliates that are buying "McLaughlin" desist until they can get Eleanor some help.

John Brummett. an award-winning columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock and author of "High Wire," a book about Bill Clinton's first year as president. His e-mail address is jbrummett@arkansasnews.com.