Albom upset that NPR is exposed, tries to shoot the messenger and misses.

Liberals really hate it when their side gets caught unmasked.

The Detroit Free Press: Mitch Albom: NPR loses in 'gotcha,' but what was won?

Mitch is in high dudgeon as an NPR nabob was caught out telling the world how he really feels about the non-bien pensant amongst us. Albom sure wishes thet message had stayed quiet and was left amongst those on the left in the know.

Maybe I'm confused, but if someone tricked me into a lunch by pretending to be someone else, secretly hid a camera, goaded me into comments during a private conversation -- then released only the juiciest parts on the Internet, I'd at least have the right to be ticked off, right?

Apparently not. When this happened to Ron Schiller, chief fund-raiser for National Public Radio, he resigned. So did NPR's CEO, Vivian Schiller, even though she had nothing to do with the comments.

I've heard about liberal guilt. But whatever happened to fighting back?

The sleazeball behind this latest "gotcha" incident is James O'Keefe, who is all of 26 years old, calls himself an investigative journalist without formal training and thinks nothing of lying and fraud as long as it perpetuates his strong conservative viewpoint.

It is hardly a gotcha when you walk right in without much prodding, and its hard to fight back when your words are recorded coming out of your mouth for all the world to see.

But not to worry, Albom wants to excuse away the nastiness revealed in Schiller's comments:

Well, besides the fact that Schiller was a fund-raiser, not a news exec, and the business and editorial sides of public broadcasting are notably separate, let me ask you this. You're a salesman. A big customer makes a dirty joke. Do you lecture him -- or just laugh along because deep down you need the sale? You're a business owner, and a customer turns the conversation political. Do you stop and make a stand?

If you have morals you do, or at the very least you don't vociferously agree and try to top it as Schiller did. Of course Albom darn well knows the exchange wasn't over a dirty joke. He knows instead it was about the good-old-fashioned twin canards of "Jews control the media" and "all these Tea Partiers and Republicans are evil racist Christian types", but hey, nice try to downplay what was said.

Or do you maybe utter a few agreements and later, on the way home, tell yourself, "I didn't even mean that."

I see, anything for a sale is just fine by Mr. Albom apparently? Morals be damned. Good to know. I expect his next book "Wednesdays with NPR" to be out shortly.

Interesting how Mr. Albom didn't publish any article decrying and castigating the false phone call to Governor Walker of Wisconsin. That of course is different.

Heck, investigative reporting is often all about undercover interviews and getting information you would certainly not get by announcing who you are. Mitch knows this of course.

Mitch Albom in this column, just as in his sports columns, is just trying to protect and promote his home team.