I do not like Juan Williams - he is a GOP shill. There, I said it - and I have not liked him for many, many years now (going all the way back to his brief stint as Ray Suarez's replacement on Talk of the Nation).
But in the case of his getting fired for his comments on Bill O'Reilly's show, he got screwed. He was making a broader point in opposition to O'Reilly's nonsense - and he was relying on the viewer to listen to the whole argument. The soundbite that got him fired was unfair - although it really was not a very astute thing to say on national television.
In the discussion (and I use that word loosely any time O'Reilly in involved), O'Reilly was painting all Muslims as evil and Williams was saying only the extremists are at war with America - Williams was making a broader point than came across in the video that got him fired - and NPR should have looked at the whole appearance.
Personally, I am glad he got fired - but I would have wanted it to be for some of the more egregious things he has said on the air over the years, not when he was actually making sense.
Here is the whole appearance:
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William, why do you say Williams is a Republican? He's clearly not far to the left, but does that make him a Republican? Also, for what comments would you have fired him over?
ReplyDeleteFrom what i have read, NPR had been uncomfortable for a long time with Williams' appearances on Fox, which they felt were teetering on the edge of partisanship, and this incident was simply the straw that broke the camel's back. As with most firings, it seem it was a pattern of behavior that was the issue, not just the comments that everyone is talking about. Inevitably, the story was simplified in the media.
ReplyDeleteHow much Neocon Mileage can FOX get out of Uncle Juan?
ReplyDeleteO'Reilly wasn't painting all Muslims as evil. That's just liberal hyperbole. I didn't get that at all from the interview. However, Muslims that are radical and all the followers that point of view are. I can think of several thousand Americans in the twin towers and several aircraft that would probably disagree with you also. I don't see any christian denominations threating death to those that hurt their feelings about their Prophets but Muslims that are also radical do.
ReplyDeletecheck this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56XGjlz_OzI
ReplyDeleteI thought Williams in this video made some excellent points and I agree with most of them. Lumping any large group into a small number of extremists is not fair. And O'Reilly did in fact basically say that about a minute into the video, he listed 3 countries - I think, as what? One bad bunch. Don't get me wrong, this garbage goes both ways. I don't get how one group condemns the liberal media like NPR, msnbc, what's the term alphabet news, and cannot see the obvious identical bias on media like Fox. I also agree with what Williams said about political correctness. It's partially to blame for the downfall of America. Problems get ignored or dealt with poorly due to fear of offending one group, or perceived favoritism. Long post sorry.
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