Charles Krauthammer Eloquently Slams NPR’s Nina Totenberg on NPR’s “Holding a Tin Cup for Taxpayer Money” (video)
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on March 12, 2011
National Public Radio’s Nina Totenberg goes up against Charles Krauthammer on “Inside Washington” following the shameful, shocking video exposé of NPR’s former senior VP Ron Schiller speaking against Jews and American conservatives while lunching with James O’Keefe’s undercover “radical Muslim donor” reporting team.
Totenberg said this about NPR — and bless her heart, she never once felt compelled to apologize for using the insensitive term “Christmas party,” either:
“There is a reason that we are the only news organization, other than Fox, with a growing audience. It is because of our product which is straight-shooting, factual, and spends an enormous amount of money gathering news from all over the country and the world.”
And because it receives millions of dollars year after year after year from taxpayers, Nina — which FOX News does not.
Krauthammer doesn’t let her go unchallenged as she attempted her typical elitist “NPR is good for you” nonsense — his response to what Schiller said and NPR’s being served in the taxpayers’ pig trough line:
“Well, all I would say, I mean I don’t want to rehash all the grounds, it obviously is a liberal organization. Obviously what you’re getting is a taste of what people say to each other internally. Everybody knows that. But I have no objection to liberal news organizations. I read the New York Times. The difference between NPR growing, Fox growing, is that Fox is not holding out a tin cup for taxpayer money. I want NPR to thrive, but not on my dime.”
For the record, I’ve not EVER heard a left-wing political commentator saying that he or she wants FOX News to thrive. Quite the opposite.
From Noel Sheppard at NewsBusters, Krauthammer Asks Totenberg: ‘Why Does NPR Have to Live on the Tit of the State?’:
After the public shaming of NPR this week, Nina Totenberg was given the option of taking a day off from PBS’s “Inside Washington” so that she wouldn’t have to face the music concerning the so-called “news organization” she works for.
Demonstrating admirable spunk, Totenberg showed up to “defend the product” her radio station produces only to have Charles Krauthammer say in the midst of a lengthy discussion about the issue, “If the product is so superior, why does it have to live on the tit of the state?”
As usual, Krauthammer rocks…
Krauthammer Takes on Totenberg and NPR: ‘Why Does it Have to Live on the Tit of the State?’
Click here for the NewsBusters’ transcript of the video.
Outstanding piece by professor of political science Dr. Paul Kengor at Townhall — here’s a portion, click here to read the rest:
The Tea Party vs. NPR
“The current Republican Party, particularly the Tea Party, is fanatically involved in people’s personal lives and very fundamental Christian,” said NPR’s Ron Schiller to two undercover reporters. “I wouldn’t even call it Christian; it’s this weird evangelical kind of [movement].”
Not knowing he was being videoed, Schiller continued: “The current Republican Party is not really the Republican Party, it’s been hijacked by this group; that is, not just Islamo-phobic but really xenophobic. I mean, basically, they are, they believe in sort of white, middle-American, gun toting—I mean, it’s scary. They’re seriously racist, racist people.” (Click here for transcript and here for video.)
Schiller is being heavily criticized for these comments, as is NPR and elite liberal thinking in general. Schiller, NPR Foundation president and vice president for development (until these comments), is the Left’s latest exhibit in smearing the Tea Party movement as bigots, racists, fascists, Hitler-ites, followers of Attila the Hun, Torquemada, Genghis Khan, or whatever other handy demon.
Yet, what’s telling about Schiller’s comments is their lack of factual basis, an even greater sin from a man whose business, and erstwhile employer, is the reporting of facts. His comments are a PR problem for NPR, furthering the perception that NPR is not about unbiased reporting but primarily about opinion—a leftist opinion camouflaged as objective news.
As evidence for my perspective, I’d like to share some statistical information on the Tea Party movement. This information was widely published and is easily available to anyone, least of all a major news organization like NPR.
In March 2010, Gallup did a comprehensive survey of the Tea Party (click here). Gallup is the most respected polling firm on the planet, and not conservative. The headline Gallup chose to highlight its study speaks for itself, “Tea Partiers Are Fairly Mainstream in Their Demographics.”
That study found that 49 percent of “Tea Party identifiers” are Republicans while 43 percent are independents and 8 percent are Democrats. The majority are not Republicans.
As to Schiller’s strange “evangelical” comment, the study found that a little over a quarter of Tea Partiers describe themselves as “pro-choice” on abortion, suggesting a stronger libertarian presence than a uniform “evangelical” movement. That’s no surprise to anyone who has observed the Tea Party even casually.
The Tea Party movement was inspired by the breathtakingly reckless spending by the Obama-Pelosi-Reid Democratic leadership that took power in 2009. Its issues are far more economic/fiscal than religious/moral. There’s a more discernible Ayn Rand “Atlas Shrugged” element than a Jerry Falwell “Moral Majority” feel—and Rand was no evangelical.
Generally, Gallup’s survey indeed found that the Tea Party was “fairly mainstream” in its demographics.
[...]
How could an NPR person—the pinnacle of the liberal news profession—ignore such information?
From Kansas City Star, NPR funding feud is talk of the nation:
Ron Schiller may have done more harm to NPR than the tea party ever could.
Schiller, the NPR executive caught speaking all too freely in a hidden-camera sting, not only lost his current job but the one at the Aspen Institute he’d lined up for later this year. That was his punishment for saying that members of the tea party were “white, Middle America, gun-toting” and “pretty scary.”
But Schiller also let slip that, in his view, NPR would be better off without federal funds.
Was he right?
As the reverberations from the undercover operation continued Wednesday with the resignation of NPR’s chief executive, Vivian Schiller, those comments by Ron Schiller (no relation) restarted the debate over whether the government should be in the media business.
“This disturbing video makes clear that taxpayer dollars should no longer be appropriated to NPR,” Rep. Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, declared in an e-mail to the online site Daily Caller.
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NPR needs to try and take off the training wheels of taxpayer money and see if they can ride with the big boys.
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Krauthammer is amazing. luv him!