NPR talk-show host Diane Rehm has finally retired from the microphone at NPR after 37 years. Rehm is best known in pro-life circles for starving her husband to death.
Rehm is wrapping up a public radio career spanning more than four decades and thousands of episodes. Her talk show has originated at Washington, D.C.’s WAMU and is heard by nearly 3 million people across the country weekly on NPR stations.
A low point for Rehm occurred last year during election season. Relying on fabricated Internet reports, she asked Bernie Sanders about his supposed dual American and Israeli citizenship — only he doesn’t have dual citizenship.
The Diane Rehm Show signs off the air Friday, to be succeeded by Joshua Johnson, whose show, 1A, will be heard on many member stations.
Yet Rehm’s voice won’t disappear. She says she has only listened to a single podcast — once — but she intends to start a podcast of her own, also for WAMU.
Millions of pro-life people will never forget Rehm helped her husband John commit suicide by choosing not to eat or drink, then agitated for “right to die” laws that would legalize assisted suicide.
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As Tim Grahm of Newsbusters noted last year: “Rehm’s crusade made the front page of Sunday’s Washington Post, under the headline “Rehm’s topic: Death with self-determination.” Online it was “NPR host Diane Rehm emerges as a key force in the right-to-die debate.” The words “assisted suicide” were missing on purpose.”
Rehm is now becoming a fundraiser for “Compassion & Choices,” formerly known as the Hemlock Society.
“How many hosts on taxpayer-funded talk shows will be testifying on a hot-button issue like euthanasia before Congress? How can anyone expect her to offer fairness when this issue comes to her own program? No one can imagine an NPR star testifying against abortion or against assisted suicide. They’re far too “progressive” for that,” Grahm said.
Rehm is mad her husband died when she was not present. It was not then just his right to die, but her preference that he die exactly when she wanted it.
She spent the night with him, and in the morning she went home for a quick shower. Then she received a call — come fast, he’s slipping away. She missed his death by 20 minutes. She is still angry about that. If he could have planned his death, she and his family would have been there.
“That’s all I keep thinking about,” she said. “Why can’t we make this more peaceful and humane?”
In “a long interview in her office,” Rehm asserted “I feel the way that John had to die was just totally inexcusable…It was not right.” She also said “Kevorkian was before his time…He was too early. The country wasn’t ready.”
Unsurprisingly, Rehm also thinks God is perfectly all right with her viewpoint:
“I prayed and prayed and prayed to God, asking that John not be suffering in any way as his life was ebbing,” she said.
Like his wife, John was Episcopalian, a church that has passed a resolution against assisted suicide and active euthanasia. She didn’t think God minded very much.
“I believe,” she said, “there is total acceptance in heaven for John’s decision to leave behind this earthly life.”
