NPR isn’t guilty of liberally biased news coverage. But they are being wimpy and irresolute.

Just because NPR doesn’t give talk shows to racist conspiracy theorists like Glenn Beck doesn’t mean it’s a biased, liberal news organization that’s using public funds to brainwash our children. In fact, anyone who listens to “All Things Considered” knows they’re hearing unbiased, quality reporting on current events.

But thanks to Bill O’Reilly, James O’Keefe, and others on the far right, the attack on NPR’s public funding is growing in intensity.

O’Keefe’s shitty clandestine video proved that liberal-leaning individuals occupy top positions at NPR. O’Keefe packages this fact in light of Juan Williams’ termination in 2010 to make a case that NPR is liberal and hypocritical. But I think the real problem with NPR is that liberals like it.

This is the organization, after all, that airs “Prairie Home Companion” and plays classical music on the weekends. And let’s face it, nothing says “Democrat” like Lake Wobegon and Brahms’ 4th Symphony. It also airs ”This American Life,” which offers intelligent human interest stories that tend to attract intelligent people who have an interest in humans.

But just because listeners like arts, humanities, and solid, conspiracy-free news reporting doesn’t mean NPR is a “totalitarian outfit functioning as an arm of the far left,” as O’Reilly charged.

“This American Life” host Ira Glass gave an interview to NPR’s “On the Media,” where he voiced his irritation with the right for its attack on NPR’s credibility, and with NPR, his employer, for taking the punches without retaliation. He asked “On the Media” to find a way to measure NPR’s bias:

“We have nothing to fear from a discussion of what is the news coverage we’re doing. As somebody who works in public radio, it is killing me that people on the right are going around trying to basically rebrand us, saying that it’s biased news, it’s left wing news, when I feel like anybody who listens to the shows knows that it’s not. And we are not fighting back, we are not saying anything back. I find it completely annoying, and I don’t understand it.”

He’s right. NPR shouldn’t roll over in the face of controversy. Just because they employ liberal-leaning people and play classical music doesn’t mean they have to act like a bunch of giant wusses.