Tuesday, March 08, 2011

Tea Party is Racist Christians, says NPR Exec

"The Tea Party is fanatically involved in people's personal lives and very fundamental Christian — I wouldn't even call it Christian. It's this weird evangelical kind of move."
— Ron Schiller, Senior VP for Development, National Public Radio

UPDATE 3/10/11: NPR president and CEO Vivian Schiller resigns in wake of anti-Christian comments

-- From "NPR exec: tea party is ‘scary,’ ‘racist’" by Keach Hagey, Politico 3/8/11

James O’Keefe, master of the video sting, targets NPR this time, in a pretty damaging interview with Ron Schiller, NPR’s senior vice president for development, and Betsy Liley, senior director of institutional giving.

O’Keefe’s compatriots, Shaughn Adeleye and Simon Templar, posed as members of a Muslim group with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood that wants to give NPR $5 million in light of the recent Republican threats to defund public broadcasting.

In the course of a lunch at Café Milano, Schiller presents himself as a liberal who thinks the tea party is “scary” and that there are not enough Muslim voices on the American airwaves, nodding as his lunchmates say they are glad NPR allows Hamas's and Hezbollah's views to be heard.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "James O'Keefe records former NPR executives on secret video" by Melissa Bell, Washington Post 3/8/11

In the video, NPR Foundation's senior VP for development Ron Schiller and senior director of institutional giving Betsy Liley talk to the donors about Juan Williams, anti-intellectualism and the tea party, which Schiller calls "a weird evangelical kind of move ... seriously racist."

"James O'Keefe catches NPR fundraiser talking exactly like a conservative nightmare of what NPR sounds like," Dave Weigel at Slate wrote on Twitter after posting the video.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "NPR Executive Caught Calling Tea Partiers ‘Racist’" by Brian Stelter, New York Times, 3/8/11

On the videotape, Mr. Schiller tells people posing as Muslim philanthropists that the Republican party has been “hijacked” by the Tea Party and that Tea Party supporters are “seriously racist, racist people.” Mr. Schiller indicates that he is sharing his personal point of view, not NPR’s.

On the secretly recorded video, Mr. Schiller, whose job is to solicit non-federal funding for NPR, says he feels that the organization would be better without the federal funds. He also says that some stations could “go dark” without the funds.

Mr. Schiller [said], “I think what we all believe is if we don’t have Muslim voices in our schools, on the air, I mean, it’s the same thing we faced as a nation when we didn’t have female voices.”

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

Also CLICK HERE to read the saga of the secularists vs. the Christian Tea Party movement (follow successive embedded links).