Updated 3/8/11 at 5:54 p.m.
Fresh off the heels of a GOP push to defund public broadcasting, NPR found itself in a bit of a compromising position Tuesday after guerilla videographers revealed one of its top executives making the GOP argument for defunding himself.
Released this morning, the video from conservative filmmaker and activist James O'Keefe shows a late February lunch meeting between two NPR fundraising executives and two guys posing as representatives of a potential donor group that's funded by the Muslim Brotherhood -- a scenario the actors reveal slowly over the course of the conversation.
In the video, Ron Schiller, the head of NPR's nonprofit organization -- and someone who last week announced he'd be joining the Aspen Institute come April -- disparaged the GOP and the tea party movement as the undercover videographers discussed donating up to $5 million to NPR in an effort to promote Muslim views.
"The current Republican Party, particularly 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," Schiller said on the video.
He also said NPR would be better off without federal financing -- funding which Republicans have been trying to strip from the radio network for some time now.
Schiller's attacks on the GOP and the tea party are sure to spark more criticism that NPR slants left. NPR has weathered a barrage of such criticism since October, when it fired journalist Juan Williams for expressing personal sentiments on Muslims and air security as a Fox News contributor.