National Palestinian Radio fired Juan Williams for being a reasonable thinking individual, which is against the rigid dogma of NPR.
I have met Juan Williams. He is a good, decent, and thoughtful man. For that reason alone he was out of place at NPR.
He is a lifelong liberal that refuses to be an ideological bigot. He disagrees with conservatives, but does not despise them. The left has always been suspicious of him, because in leftist world, refusing to hate conservatives makes him a collaborator.
As many people know, NPR currently has no rationale for existing. It is a welfare child that refuses to get a job after decades on the dole. Ed Schultz may be an ideological bigoted lout, but at least he succeeds in the free market. NPR is paid for by taxpayers.
NPR stooges point out that less than 2 % of their budget comes from the federal government. If this is true, they will not miss that small amount of money.
Juan Williams does not hate America or Israel. This led to his downfall.
Williams had the audacity to lament that he sometimes gets nervous seeing Muslims wearing their full traditional garb on airplanes.
Gee, I wonder why.
Everybody outside of politically correct Islamist scrotum lickers can understand that while virtually all Arabs or Muslims are not terrorists, virtually all terrorists are Arab Muslims.
Outside of Joy Behar and her gaggle on the View, the entire world understands this.
To maintain ideological purity at NPR, the only solution is to go back and find out which host do not hate conservatives. Then fire those hosts.
Juan Williams is a lifelong liberal who has been the most liberal individual to face political McCarthyism since Larry Summers.
There are a million thing’s that could be said, but watching liberals devour their own is better than much of the Discovery Channel.
As Rush Limbaugh said, “NPR will have trouble finding somebody who is a minority with a name sounding like a second minority. Maybe they can hire Whoopi Goldberg to fill their quota.”
Conservatives who care for freedom should stand up for Juan Williams.
As for NPR, it is beyond salvation. Euthanize it and be done.
eric
You’re a little confused about the funding. yes, NPR – the national network – receives very little of its funding from the federal government, but the little, rural, small-market, public radio stations all over the country do depend on federal assistance. Most of these stations then pay a fee to carry some NPR programming (as well as PRI and other networks). Much of there programming, however, is local news and interest, classical music and other higher-art content, etc. This is a vital intellectual lifeline to Middle America. Yes, without public financing, NPR and PRI would do just fine, and the big-market stations in NYC, LA, Miami, Chicago, etc, would be just fine. But many of the small-markets out there would be deprived of one of America’s last vestiges of classy, intelligent, artistic programming, and that would be a tragedy.
Williams got in trouble because, according to NPR, he was blurring the line between news analyst and opinion-commentator. NPR does have a rhetorical argument here, as they are one of the few remaining radio news outlets that strive for objective journalistic integrity. Personally, I think the NPR audiences just plain hate FOX “News” (as do I), and so they dumped him when they felt they had the right opportunity.
However, I think NPR made a bad move at a bad time here. This is just more ammunition for the Right to bash decency and culture, and it completely took the spotlight off other important news at this time. A key to objective journalistic integrity is to never make yourself the news. Juan Williams may sometimes be guilty of that, but not by much, and NPR should definitely be above it.
JMJ
Two liberal commentators on The News Hour ( PBS ), agreed that his firing was not executed properly.
To be honest, they both have differing views on most everything…One is
a moderate Conservative (admittedly) the other liberal. I admire
David Brooks, but look askance at his questioning if there is a God.
There is a God folks, who is defined in human terms. But G-d is
really not definable, which is why I admire Judaism. The faith
understands the difficulty of worshiping a specific entity, which is
too complex for our puny brains.
NPR, should be dissolved, disappear. In its quest to be
middle of the road, and thus uninteresting and predictable,
it got itself into this latest flap.
Reminds me of a friend, who joined me one day at a local
fast food restaurant. We were not too far from the Israeli consulate.
He noticed someone who had long hair, poorly dressed, designer shoes
and an ear ring. He insisted we both leave, as the other persons bad probably carried a bomb. We left, but was more than a little annoyed.
Not all Muslims are terrorists. In NYCity, for decades, some Muslms
wore burkas. They were unusal in appearance but not bomb carriers.
They still aren’t. I would be upset if they were frisked on the suspiciion
that they are bomb carriying Muslims.
In the M.E., Arabs sometimes dress as Orthodox Jews..and do in fact
carry explosives through check points.
But the M.E. is the M.E.
Speaking of Arabs, the Sunnis must be gloating now that Arabia
will received 60b dollars worth of F15s, helicopters, bombs, etc.
from US. Our resonsing..they will be a bulwark against the Iranians.
Now, does anyone believe that nonsense? Iran is 1,000 miles away
and has 10m in its various armies..with over 200 Revolutionary Guards
alone. It makes its own planes..missile boats, and soon nukes.
Arabia cannot ever hope to duke it out with Iran..maybe Iraq and Israel.
But I would not suggest it.
Iran will have 50 nukes within 10 years..two exploded over Arabias capital and oil fields..get it.Why do they need 150F15s? Who are they going to fight, Russia, India, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan.
Its really simple. We get back 60b in petro dollars and make the Saudi
princes happy. Nothing else is accomplished.