To those who make public fools of themselves saying that one-sided left-wing programming on PBS is an illusion, we suggest they open the Sunday Washington Post to the TV Week magazine. There on the cover is a picture of Pete Seeger, the radical-left folk singer-songwriter. "Raising His Voice: PBS Pays Tribute to Singer-Activist Pete Seeger," the cover says. Inside, readers learn PBS is offering a 90-minute documentary openly described as a "tribute." The headline is "Pete Seeger, a Force of Nature." Even Seeger seems embarrassed that PBS is offering America this whitewash of his life and career:

Regrets? Seeger says he has "millions of them -- stupid things I've done here and there." His criticism of the PBS tribute is that it "didn't show any of the stupid things I've done." Director Jim Brown has known Seeger for a long time, said Susan Lacy, executive producer of the "American Masters" series, and Brown wasn't trying to make a totally balanced film. "That's not meant in a negative way," she said. "It's just that Pete Seeger is such a principled idealist, such a good man."

The New York Times has now corrected a "smear" about Pete Seeger being 50 years too late in denouncing Stalin. Thanks to the intrepid research of Times reporter Daniel J. Wakin, the record has now been set straight. Pete Seeger was only about 40 years too late in criticizing Stalin.

What inspired Wakin to make this "major" correction was a report by historian Ron Radosh in the August 31 New York Sun that Pete Seeger sent him a letter recently expressing his regret that he didn't see what anybody with a pair of even slightly discerning eyes could have spotted: that Joseph Stalin was evil. In reponse to Radosh's criticism of the former Communist Party member for slavishly following the Stalinist party line, Pete Seeger sent him a letter which was excerpted in Seeger Speaks — and Sings — Against Stalin: