I'm still waiting for a logical explanation.

Recently, I noted that the right-wing celebration over the undercover video that captured an unsuspecting NPR fundraiser airing his personal opinion about the Tea Party movement struck me as odd because the public radio employee in question has nothing to do with NPR's newsroom or the programming that it airs. And if the whole point of the relentless conservative attack against NPR is to prove how libreally biased it is and how it's reporting can't be trusted, what good is overheard lunchtime chatter from someone who has nothing to do with NPR reporting?

The point is, as Media Matters has detailed at length, NPR's coverage of the Tea Party--its journalism--has been generous, respectful and professional. More importantly, I haven't seen any NPR critics this week provide strong evidence to suggest otherwise. That's why this whole charade is getting tiresome: Public radio is out to get conservatives and its reporting about the Tea Party movement has been grossly unfair, but we can't actually point to any instances to back up our claim. And oh yeah, NPR should be defunded even though we can't really tell you what's wrong with its programming.

This week on CNN, Andrew Breitbart tried to make his case against the network [emphasis added]:

Well, first of all, I will say this, the best coverage on this incident has been NPR. It's been impeccable and I as a conservative will say that it is the most reliable and best resource for me to get news on how people who are left-of-center think. I respect NPR more than you would actually think, but NPR has fed this false narrative of the tea party as racist, in fact, it had a thing on its website called how to talk tea bag. The tea party is trying to defend itself against an onslaught of nonstop mainstream media attacks.

Got that? In two years of covering the Tea Party movement, NPR's website (not even its radio programming) once hosted an editorial cartoon that mocked elements of the conservative movement. And according to the right-wing PC police that is simply not allowed.

Again, there is no there there in terms of this attack on NPR and its supposedly evil portrayal of conservatives. And this bears repeating: The relentless drive to defund NPR has very little to do with how the network treats conservatives. Instead, it has much more to do with their contempt for serious, independent journalism.