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NPR Is Collateral Damage in Battle to Brand Tea Party

The latest James O’Keefe success story against NPR has taken a predictable pattern — panicked press releases and firings, followed by denunciation of O’Keefe in a belated attempt to discredit him. Naturally, conservatives are crowing about it, but I wanted to give a little perspective to those Huffington Post readers — whatever your political stripe — who share my passion for free speech, honest debate, and fairness in the media.
Over the past year, the mainstream media has collaborated with the White House in an attempt to paint the Tea Party as racist. Remember the protests on Capitol Hill last March against ObamaCare, and the media’s lie that members of the Congressional Black Congress had awful racial slurs hurled at them by Tea Party members that weekend? Did you know that there’s video evidence that it isn’t true?
Not just one video, either. Four of them. Yes. Four. Of. Them. There’s not one shred of objective evidence that corroborates the “Tea Party N-Word” story. But the mainstream media has allowed the lie to live on as one of the central “proofs” of Tea Party racism. It’s been debunked, but it’s raised time and time again by those claiming “reality” as their mantle.
The mainstream media promotes the idea that the Tea Party is racist because they want to delegitimize an authentic, grassroots movement that stands up to big government. And the “Tea Party N-word” story ties all the other lies about the Tea Party together — that it’s violent, that it’s extreme, that it’s a “mob.” If you want to see what a violent, extreme mob looks like, go to Madison to see the crazed throngs the media refuses to scrutinize.
James O’Keefe’s NPR tapes show what conservatives already knew: that avowed radical religious extremist racists like the Muslim Brotherhood get better treatment from journalists than politically engaged Americans who believe in limited government. Jihadist high-rollers or the window-breaking drum circle thugs in Madison are handled with more respect in the press than the guilty-until-proven-innocent Tea Party or people at health care town hall meetings.
But here’s the question that no one on the left — except Jon Stewart — is asking about the NPR sting: why did NPR roll over so quickly? Why did they fire Ron Schiller that same day, and why did NPR’s board fire Vivian Schiller the next? Ron Schiller could have fought back. He could have emphasized that he was speaking in his personal capacity, and that he had no input into NPR’s editorial process. But he didn’t fight. Why not?
NPR’s original excuse was that Ron Schiller was already planning to leave.

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