THE JUAN WILLIAMS FIRING
October 22, 2010
I have always been a strong believer in the right of any organization, business or other entity to hire or fire whomever it wishes.
That said, if someone is dismissed for a detestable reason, we have the right to react accordingly. Such is the case with the completely unjustifiable decision by NPR to dismiss commentator Juan Williams.
You have likely heard many conservatives speak well of Juan, and I will join that chorus. He has been on the show a number of times, and I have been around him personally a few more. In addition to the thoughtfulness and humor you see on TV, he is also unfailingly kind and decent.
It is this status as one of the right’s favorite liberals that put him out on a brittle limb in the first place.
Juan has not made friends of ideological opponents by moderating his views. He is a proud liberal. Unlike most in leftist commentary, though, he is not a complete ass about it.
He comfortably jousts with a right-leaning panel every week on “Fox News Sunday,” a show NPR wishes he never showed up for. Juan commits an unpardonable liberal sin on that panel from time to time-- acknowledging that others have made good points.
In an appearance on Fox’s “O’Reilly Factor” this week, he was discussing the host’s recent dustup on “The View,” where his objection to a Ground Zero mosque gave Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar such a case of the vapors that they had to leave the set.
Williams has been on with Bill O’Reilly countless times. But on this occasion, his admission to nervousness upon seeing passengers in Muslim dress on a plane was more than the NPR moralists could tolerate.
Before we get to their gutlessness in firing him, let me assert that Juan could have crafted this thought a little more skillfully. It is not Muslim garments that seem a worthy cause for concern. The 9/11 hijackers dressed like college students. Part of the whole terror vibe is to move undetected, which is demonstrably harder if dressed like a Saudi sheikh.
I would love to say I have never seen a Middle Eastern man on a flight and entertained a fleeting thought along the lines of “I hope he’s not a threat.” I would be lying. In no way does this mean I actively expect Arabs on my flight to be terrorists. It is simply a twinge based on sad past history, as when Jesse Jackson admitted an elevated level of concern if youths walking toward him on a city sidewalk happen to be black.
But Juan Williams’ honesty, surrounded in the very same interview with several admonishments against generalization and persecution of Muslims, rattled the sensibilities of NPR, which accepts your tax money and mine to create TV and radio shows.
Those shows slant decidedly left, as do the executives who run the place. Displaying a stunning lack of class, NPR CEO Vivian Schiller suggested Juan should have kept his views “between himself and his psychiatrist.”
This is the familiar tactic of the left: Disagree with us and you are crazy.
If someone wants to suggest that Juan’s air travel concerns were unwarranted or overstated, fine. That’s the sound of debate and discussion. But in NPR’s ivory towers, any part of debate that wounds their fragile sensibilities must be silenced.
This does not mean they do not allow caustic commentary; it just has to be aimed at conservatives, as when reporter Nina Totenberg suggested God should give Senator Jesse Helms AIDS for failing to support sufficient expenditures for research on the disease. Or when talk show host Michel Martin suggested that if the Ground Zero mosque should move, Christian churches should have moved after Tim McVeigh’s Oklahoma City bombing. You can throw down some ferocious opinions on NPR, as long as they satisfy the management’s tastes for leftist flavor.
Which brings me to my first premise: Isn’t NPR entitled to fire anyone they wish? To a degree, yes. But the fact that everything they do is propped up by taxpayer dollars makes their personnel decisions everybody’s business.
So I have the perfect solution. I want to free NPR from any obligation to taxpayers. if they want to fire Juan, fine. If I don’t like it, fine. I want them to be able to tell me to go take a hike if I don’t like it.
Only one thing will establish this sweet atmosphere of freedom-- the complete and immediate defunding of NPR by the government. Not one dime of taxpayer money should flow into that operation, freeing them to hire all the haters they wish and fire all the decent folks they can find. It would then be none of our business.
This is not a new view of mine. I have never believed government should fund any type of media. I believed that before the country was spiraling into an abyss of debt, so I obviously believe it even more fervently now.
I am also not an NPR-hater. Their politics make my teeth itch sometimes, but I exercise my right to change the station. Some of their TV documentaries are masterpieces, and some of their radio shows, especially in the multi-topic playground of weekends, are a delight.
And I absolutely believe that if the government subsidy were yanked tomorrow, all of those shows would still be there, funded by listeners who wanted them to continue. Shoot, I’d write a check right now to fund Ira Glass on “This American Life” or the news quiz show “Wait, Wait...Don’t Tell Me!”
So maybe NPR has done us a favor. When Karl Rove and Whoopi Goldberg can agree that Juan got screwed, you know we have something here that resonates across a wide spectrum. Maybe that vast landscape of people will also agree that if NPR wants to make idiotic decisions, they can do it with their own money.
October 22, 2010
I have always been a strong believer in the right of any organization, business or other entity to hire or fire whomever it wishes.
That said, if someone is dismissed for a detestable reason, we have the right to react accordingly. Such is the case with the completely unjustifiable decision by NPR to dismiss commentator Juan Williams.
You have likely heard many conservatives speak well of Juan, and I will join that chorus. He has been on the show a number of times, and I have been around him personally a few more. In addition to the thoughtfulness and humor you see on TV, he is also unfailingly kind and decent.
It is this status as one of the right’s favorite liberals that put him out on a brittle limb in the first place.
Juan has not made friends of ideological opponents by moderating his views. He is a proud liberal. Unlike most in leftist commentary, though, he is not a complete ass about it.
He comfortably jousts with a right-leaning panel every week on “Fox News Sunday,” a show NPR wishes he never showed up for. Juan commits an unpardonable liberal sin on that panel from time to time-- acknowledging that others have made good points.
In an appearance on Fox’s “O’Reilly Factor” this week, he was discussing the host’s recent dustup on “The View,” where his objection to a Ground Zero mosque gave Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar such a case of the vapors that they had to leave the set.
Williams has been on with Bill O’Reilly countless times. But on this occasion, his admission to nervousness upon seeing passengers in Muslim dress on a plane was more than the NPR moralists could tolerate.
Before we get to their gutlessness in firing him, let me assert that Juan could have crafted this thought a little more skillfully. It is not Muslim garments that seem a worthy cause for concern. The 9/11 hijackers dressed like college students. Part of the whole terror vibe is to move undetected, which is demonstrably harder if dressed like a Saudi sheikh.
I would love to say I have never seen a Middle Eastern man on a flight and entertained a fleeting thought along the lines of “I hope he’s not a threat.” I would be lying. In no way does this mean I actively expect Arabs on my flight to be terrorists. It is simply a twinge based on sad past history, as when Jesse Jackson admitted an elevated level of concern if youths walking toward him on a city sidewalk happen to be black.
But Juan Williams’ honesty, surrounded in the very same interview with several admonishments against generalization and persecution of Muslims, rattled the sensibilities of NPR, which accepts your tax money and mine to create TV and radio shows.
Those shows slant decidedly left, as do the executives who run the place. Displaying a stunning lack of class, NPR CEO Vivian Schiller suggested Juan should have kept his views “between himself and his psychiatrist.”
This is the familiar tactic of the left: Disagree with us and you are crazy.
If someone wants to suggest that Juan’s air travel concerns were unwarranted or overstated, fine. That’s the sound of debate and discussion. But in NPR’s ivory towers, any part of debate that wounds their fragile sensibilities must be silenced.
This does not mean they do not allow caustic commentary; it just has to be aimed at conservatives, as when reporter Nina Totenberg suggested God should give Senator Jesse Helms AIDS for failing to support sufficient expenditures for research on the disease. Or when talk show host Michel Martin suggested that if the Ground Zero mosque should move, Christian churches should have moved after Tim McVeigh’s Oklahoma City bombing. You can throw down some ferocious opinions on NPR, as long as they satisfy the management’s tastes for leftist flavor.
Which brings me to my first premise: Isn’t NPR entitled to fire anyone they wish? To a degree, yes. But the fact that everything they do is propped up by taxpayer dollars makes their personnel decisions everybody’s business.
So I have the perfect solution. I want to free NPR from any obligation to taxpayers. if they want to fire Juan, fine. If I don’t like it, fine. I want them to be able to tell me to go take a hike if I don’t like it.
Only one thing will establish this sweet atmosphere of freedom-- the complete and immediate defunding of NPR by the government. Not one dime of taxpayer money should flow into that operation, freeing them to hire all the haters they wish and fire all the decent folks they can find. It would then be none of our business.
This is not a new view of mine. I have never believed government should fund any type of media. I believed that before the country was spiraling into an abyss of debt, so I obviously believe it even more fervently now.
I am also not an NPR-hater. Their politics make my teeth itch sometimes, but I exercise my right to change the station. Some of their TV documentaries are masterpieces, and some of their radio shows, especially in the multi-topic playground of weekends, are a delight.
And I absolutely believe that if the government subsidy were yanked tomorrow, all of those shows would still be there, funded by listeners who wanted them to continue. Shoot, I’d write a check right now to fund Ira Glass on “This American Life” or the news quiz show “Wait, Wait...Don’t Tell Me!”
So maybe NPR has done us a favor. When Karl Rove and Whoopi Goldberg can agree that Juan got screwed, you know we have something here that resonates across a wide spectrum. Maybe that vast landscape of people will also agree that if NPR wants to make idiotic decisions, they can do it with their own money.