Steve Inskeep, co-host of Morning Edition:

A video editor created a faux organization, set up a meeting, and secretly recorded the bone-headed remarks of an NPR executive. The editor, activist James O’Keefe, spliced together clips to suggest that NPR was prepared to take money from an Islamist group allegedly founded by members of the “Muslim Brotherhood in America.” Emails show that NPR refused the money, and the conservative website The Blaze discovered that the executive’s remarks were repeatedly lifted out of context. Nevertheless, the executive and his CEO were dismissed. I congratulate Mr. O’Keefe for upholding his values: faith in the power of video to mislead. As columnist Michael Gerson noted in the Washington Post, by selectively misquoting the executive’s words, rearranging events, and other devices, Mr. O’Keefe made him sound sympathetic to Islamic radicals and unfairly tarnished NPR with “an elaborate, alluring lie.”

It’s nice to see someone at NPR finally defending themselves and calling a liar a liar. Republicans want to destroy NPR, period. They didn’t need O’Keefe’s lies the last time they tried to defund NPR, during the 90s, and they don’t need them today. O’kKeefe’s video is simply a convenient pretext for what the GOP wanted to do all along. And if the lie helps move the agenda forward, all the better.

The only way NPR is going to win this battle is by fighting back and calling a liar a liar. If Republicans want to kill Big Bird, NPR should make sure everyone in the country knows that simple fact.