Long time NPR news personality Juan Williams was terminated by National Public Radio (NPR) after offering his opinions on FNC’s O’Reilly Factor. Williams was asked by the host for his views regarding the walkout reaction to the Goldberg/Behar gaggle on ABC’s The View when O’Reilly said that Moslems committed the atrocities on 9/11/2001.
Williams, a reliable liberal voice who also often appears on Fox News programs, concurred with O’Reilly’s observation that Moslem jihadists are the biggest threat to the world today. Sharing unusual honesty, Williams dared to say,
I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.
It did not matter that Williams couched his views by added that there are plenty of good Moslems but that those who were strongly identifying with Moslem culture are more prone to jihadism.
NPR’s press release noted that Williams remarks, “were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR.”. That high minded statement of standards seems rather hypocritical considering NPR approving the Mark Fiore’s “How to speak Tea Bag” on their own website. NPR omnibusman Alicia Shepard claims that no one knew that “tea-bagger” was a sexual slur. NPR executives would neither apologize for the cartoon nor remove it from their website. NPR Vice President for News Ellen Weiss said, This one satire is not the only coverage on the topic and while it offends some members of the audience, I see no reason to remove it."
If Williams’ introspective opinions on ANOTHER NETWORK was controversial and over the line, Michelle Malkin points out that an NPR affilliate employee Sarah Spitz of KCRW wished death on Rush Limbaugh, and this was not considered a firing offense or even a distancing of the repugnant view by the network.
Could William’s termination be due to the $1.8 million endowment by George Soros Open Society Foundation to endow hiring 100 political reporters for NPR? Aside from its left of center slant, NPR has been well known for skewing news for reporters with endowed news beats. For instance, NPR used to only have one Pentagon reporter but had five science reporters that were endowed by generous grants by public minded corporations. Of course, this underwriting would never have any influence on NPR science coverage since Public Radio is so fair and balanced and unbeholden to corporations–not.
A more likely causal connection is Politically Correct dhimmitude. On Wednesday, the Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR) issued a press release demanding consequence for William’s opinion. CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad stated: "Such irresponsible and inflammatory comments would not be tolerated if they targeted any other racial, ethnic or religious minority, and they should not pass without action by NPR.". Williams was notified of his termination Wednesday night.
Williams was off the PC reservation and expressing these concerns was anathematic to elites. So much so, NPR CEO Vivian Shiller was quoted as saying to the Atlanta Press Club that Juan Williams should should have kept his feelings about Muslims between, "himself and his psychiatrist or his publicist," But Shiller walked that statement back after bad publicity and said that she spoke in haste.
Juan Williams has never been the darling of conservatives as he was a reliable liberal. However, Williams has a remarkable record for his honesty and integrity about racial issues. Williams sometimes stood alone and reused to succumb to the drum beat of conformism to so called civil rights leaders. If people can not connect the dots and see how individuals who aggressively immerse themselves in Islamic culture are going to be more prone to the siren song of violent jihadism then this country is well on its way to dhimmi-tude.
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