Archive for 2010

CAROLINE MAY: Muslims Speak Out Against NPR’s Political Correctness.

UPDATE: Juan Williams, The Truthful Dissident. “Williams was wrong about the likelihood of a Muslim in traditional garb being a terrorist — Muslims who wear Western clothing and speak English with Marxist-Islamist vocabulary are vastly more likely to be suicide bombers in the West than a devout Muslim in an abaya or thobe or Pakistani shalwar qameez. But while his manner may have been clumsy, Williams was right to suggest that there is a troubling nexus between the modern Islamic identity and the embrace of terrorism as a holy act.”

CHANGE: “Home invasions by people disguised as law enforcement seem to happen more and more these days.” If you could be confident that a real police officer wouldn’t break down your door, it would be less of an issue . . . .

Somebody breaks into your house, they should be at their own risk. They get hurt . . . too bad. You get hurt — they get charged with assault, or murder, and also pay damages with no sovereign immunity. No, this isn’t the law. But it should be.

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: Juan Williams, Victim Of Change.

Related: NPR CEO: That Black Man is Crazy! “NPR CEO: Williams’ Views Should Stay Between Himself And ‘His Psychiatrist’.”

Plus: Lefty Blogger: Juan Williams Was Fox News’ “Lawn Jockey.”

UPDATE: Juan Williams speaks: “I was fired for telling the truth.”

MORE: I See White People: Juan Williams Firing Leaves Sudden Lack Of Diversity On Air at NPR. Racists.

Plus, a reader emails: “I worked at a wall street firm. If someone had called and asked why I fired a person, and I responded ‘that’s between his psychiatrist and him’, can you imagine the liability?”

And reader Allen S. Thorpe writes: “Has anybody in the media made this big a gaffe since Dan Rather defended those fake TANG documents?”

It does seem like a serious misstep.

STILL MORE: Juan Williams And The Preference Cascade. “Juan Williams came too close to understanding ideas he was supposed to hate. The Left is deathly afraid of what happens when its constituents begin to understand the Right. They didn’t like the idea of millions watching an NPR contributor break the biohazard seal on strictly quarantined ideas.”

RACHEL MADDOW WINS The Award for Most Sanctimonious Non-Apology of the Week. “So mistakenly accusing someone of being an accessory to the worst act of domestic terrorism in this country’s history isn’t really that bad, since it acted as a catalyst for what Maddow sees as a much-needed discussion? That’s not exactly a convincing argument, and not only because it’s the real-world actualization of liberal blogger Matthew Yglesias’s defense of lying in the name of some greater political good.”

Meh. This is who they are, this is what they do.

JAMES TARANTO: Public Radio vs. The Public: The comment that got Juan Williams fired–and the one that didn’t. “It is highly revealing that a hostile expression of prejudice against ordinary Americans is apparently consistent with whatever standards and practices supposedly govern NPR. On the other hand a pained expression of a prejudice shared by ordinary Americans and rooted in the reality of war, we are told, violates those ineffable standards and is a firing offense.”

Related: Juan Williams: Fired For Doubting? “I wonder if it was smart of NPR to–12 days out from an election where leftism is headed for a defeat of rejection–reinforce the perception that both liberalism and the media are out of control; that they have utterly cast off their former roles as champions of free speech and free thought, in favor of compulsory conformity.”

Also: “Thoughtcrime.”

UPDATE: Reader Barry Dauphin writes: “It’s pledge week here at your local NPR affiliate, so we’ll celebrate by firing Juan Williams. Now we’ll bring you some objective reporting from Nina Totenberg. Nina, tell us how you feel about the Tea Party.”

Related: Will NPR fire Nina Totenberg for wishing Jesse Helms would get AIDS?

NOW IT’S A “WAR ON GOLD?”

They told me if I voted for John McCain we’d see endless war against imagined enemies. And they were right!