On Tuesday, conservative activist James O'Keefe posted a video showing NPR executive Ron Schiller bashing the tea party movement. The video shows two activists, working for O'Keefe, posing as members of a fake Muslim group at a lunch meeting with Ron Schiller, who is not related to Vivian Schiller. The men offered NPR a $5 million donation and engage in a wide-ranging discussion about tea party Republicans, pro-Israel bias in the media and anti-intellectualism.
To have any effect on NPR, the Republicans are after the source of 10% of its revenue, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (educational television mainly - Sesame Street through Great Performances with NOVA, Frontline and a few dozen hugely popular programs thrown in - including support for Antiques Roadshow with its 30 million weekly viewers). How it works is Congress funds (partially) CPB. CPB extends grants to some programming on NPR and NPR gets about 2% of its operating budget from these grants.
Mr. Schiller spoke the truth - however inelegantly - about the Tea Party. ... and he spoke the truth that it would be best if NPR took no money from CPB in program development grants.
So now there is an uproar, consuming a substantial amount of the news cycle and very important congressional time. Senators are in a dither. Congress is foaming at the mouth. The hatred is tangible and by golly you can just feel it in the air.
I think about the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey where the man/apes are surrounding the big "domino" and it gives off its signal and these ape-men haven't a clue as to what is up and can't figure out the noise other than to realize it is deafening and they run around like water drops on a hot griddle.
That should draw the current situation accurately.