But on Capitol Hill, there were rays of light for the public broadcaster, as Senate moderates in both parties, who ultimately could be the key decision makers in any funding fight, offered a defense of the broadcaster against the conservative onslaught calling for defunding.

“It would be a real mistake to defund it,” Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) told POLITICO, adding that her sense was that many moderates in the Senate would agree. “I know that some people think it’s too liberal-leaning, and I think they’re making an effort to make their programming more centrist, but ... in the day of Fox News on one side and MSNBC on the other side, it’s nice to turn on your radio and have a little bit more fair and balanced approach.”

Democrats defending public broadcasting normally wouldn’t be much of a surprise in Congress, where support and opposition to federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting breaks along party lines. But the expressions of support were notable Wednesday as longtime NPR detractors had a field day after its chief fundraiser was caught by a hidden camera saying that, in the long run, the broadcaster would be better off without federal funding.

Still, NPR may have committed the greatest sin of all in a season in which deficit-cutting drives the conversation, by simply making itself a target.

NPR CEO Vivian Schiller resigned Wednesday morning, a day after a video produced by conservative provocateur James O’Keefe surfaced showing Ron Schiller, the broadcaster’s top fundraiser, telling activists posing as representatives of an fictitious Muslim charity that the tea party was “racist” and NPR could forgo taxpayer dollars.

The message ran directly counter to the one that Vivian Schiller, who is not related to Ron Schiller, had brought to the National Press Club just a day earlier. She argued that the funding member stations receive from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which makes up an average of 10 percent of their budgets, is essential to their functioning, particularly for those stations in smaller markets and rural areas. Member stations pay fees to NPR with some of that money, though NPR receives only about 2 percent of its budget directly from CPB.

Ron Schiller resigned Tuesday night, but NPR’s board, which is made up mostly of the heads of local stations, clearly thought that wasn’t enough. Board Chairman Dave Edwards said Wednesday that the video scandal, combined with the ongoing anger over NPR’s decision to fire Juan Williams last fall, made it too distracting for Vivian Schiller to continue doing her job.

Democrats and Republicans used Vivian Schiller’s resignation Wednesday to rehash the debate on the government’s place in supporting broadcasting during financially trying times. But when push comes to shove, many said the inclusion or exclusion of such funds in a continuing resolution likely won’t be a deal-breaker in getting a compromise brokered.

The House GOP defunded public broadcasting in its H.R. 1 budget package, which the Senate rejected 56-44 on Wednesday. But many Republican lawmakers and aides stress that eliminating what they believe is unnecessary funding to outlets such as NPR or PBS is a winning issue or at least an issue on which Democrats won’t stand their ground when other programs, such as Planned Parenthood or Head Start, are also at risk of being cut.

But not every House Republican is on board with the party message, which might be another indication that this issue won’t become a sticking point as negotiations move forward. And in terms of actual cost, even if Congress were to appropriate what Obama asked for in his budget, the scale of the cost of public broadcasting is minuscule in the context of the deficit as a whole. Public broadcasting received $430 million for 2011 and $445 million for 2012, and the most recent Obama budget bumps funding slightly to $451 million for 2014.

“I think it serves a purpose. All of those funds, if you look at ’em, are not a lot of money in the big scheme of things here,” said Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-Ohio). “My position has been in these tough economic times, everybody deserves a haircut and everybody should expect a haircut, but there’s a difference between getting scalped and just taking it above the ears.”

Senate moderates in both parties, who will ultimately be the key deciders in whether funding would continue if a choice were presented in a final deal or amendment, expressed support Wednesday for continued funding.

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) voted to support H.R. 1 but expressed concerns about many of the social riders in the hundreds of amendments that had been attached in the lower chamber. She said specifically that she supports government funding for public broadcasting.

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), who will support neither the current Republican nor Democratic budget offerings, said on the floor that the House GOP’s bill included “provisions pushing a political agenda snuck into the bill in the dead of night,” citing public television in his home state as an important “lifeline” to his constituents.

Even if there is support among the Senate rank and file to continue funding public broadcasting, the question remains whether it will become an issue on which party leaders go to the mat. Aides from both parties expressed reservations about the will of the Senate to act on this issue, particularly with so many others on the H.R. 1 menu.

“It’s a matter of how many red-state Democrats want to go home and explain to their constituents that they worked to keep these funds for this organization given current events and more importantly, the current budget situation,” said a House GOP aide.

The most spirited discussions to date on the Hill have focused on cuts to discretionary spending that has been the bread and butter of the Democratic agenda: benefits to seniors, early-education programs and funding for the laws the party passed in the 111th Congress that have been slashed.

Both parties have clearly staked their ground on the issue, and it’s unclear whether this week’s news moved either side.

Statements from leadership have indicated as much.

“Our concern is not about any one person at NPR, rather it’s about millions of taxpayers. NPR has admitted that they don’t need taxpayer subsidies to thrive, and at a time when the government is borrowing 40 cents of every dollar that it spends, we certainly agree with them,” Cantor said in a statement Wednesday.

Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence of Indiana struck a similar chord in a television appearance earlier in the day.

“It would be more right, though, if we seized this time of a fiscal crisis to say it’s time to end public funding for NPR, it’s time to end public funding for Planned Parenthood of America; these organizations that have a particular viewpoint, that advance a particular liberal viewpoint, ought to do what every other policy organization in this town does, and that is raise their own resources to advance their own agenda,” Pence told Fox News on Wednesday.