NPR's soon-to-be-departing senior vice president for fundraising Ron Schiller is seen and heard on a videotape released this morning telling two men who were posing as members of a fictitious Muslim Action Education Center that:
— "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."
— "Tea Party people" aren't "just Islamaphobic, but really xenophobic, I mean basically they are, they believe in sort of white, middle-America gun-toting. I mean, it's scary. They're seriously racist, racist people."
— "I think what we all believe is if we don't have Muslim voices in our schools, on the air ... it's the same thing we faced as a nation when we didn't have female voices." In the heavily edited tape, that comment followed Schiller being told by one of the men that their organization "was originally founded by a few members of the Muslim Brotherhood in America." There's no sign in the edited tape that Schiller reacted in any way after being told of the group's alleged connection to an Islamic group that appeared to be connected with Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood.
— That NPR "would be better off in the long run without federal funding," a position in direct conflict with the organization's official position.
Schiller is also heard laughing when one of the men jokes that NPR should be known as "National Palestinian Radio."
NPR, as you'll see below, has called Schiller's comments appalling.
