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You are here: Home / Yeah, But This Time It Is Different

Yeah, But This Time It Is Different

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Because he was bashing Muslims:

I’m still not quite over the most disgusting part of the Juan Williams spectacle yesterday: watching the very same people (on the Right and in the media) who remained silent about or vocally cheered on the viewpoint-based firings of Octavia Nasr, Helen Thomas, Rick Sanchez, Eason Jordan, Peter Arnett, Phil Donahue, Ashleigh Banfield, Bill Maher, Ward Churchill, Chas Freeman, Van Jones and so many others, spend all day yesterday wrapping themselves in the flag of “free expression!!!” and screeching about the perils and evils of firing journalists for expressing certain viewpoints. Even for someone who expects huge doses of principle-free hypocrisy — as I do — that behavior is really something to behold. And anyone doubting that there is a double standard when it comes to anti-Muslim speech should just compare the wailing backlash from most quarters over Williams’ firing to the muted acquiescence or widespread approval of those other firings.

And if that Fox thing doesn’t work out, there is always the New Republic. Hell, Williams probably already has done enough for the cause to deserve a Harvard honorarium.

Reader Interactions

104Comments

  1. 1.

    chopper

    this has been my point. it’s totally okay to bash muslims. and gays. other groups, you get shitcanned and nobody bats an eyelash except maybe for the crazies.

    if the dude said what he said about latinos most dudes on the right would have walked away immediately.

  3. 3.

    Ash Can

    Greenwald should hope that he never does get over the most disgusting part of the spectacle. If he does, it means he’ll have lost his sense of basic decency.

  4. 4.

    cleek

    I’m still not quite over the most disgusting part

    WTF, GG. it’s politics. it’s tribal, team-based, politics. of course people will hoot and holler in the manner that’s most likely to benefit their side and/or hurt the other side.

    standards have no place in politics.

  5. 5.

    Ash Can

    @chopper: Not when all those dudes on the right think that every Latino-looking person needs to be able to show citizenship papers upon request, they wouldn’t.

  7. 7.

    Joshua Norton

    Blah. Juan made an asinine, ignorant statement that perpetuates prejudice at the very least and that’s why he was fired. Once he climbed aboard Fox News, all of the respect that he earned in his long career immediately began to disappear.

    He’s become the Michael Steele of punditry so he’ll be a perfect, full-time house boy at Fox.

  8. 8.

    DonkeyKong

    Williams won 2 million dollars by answering the right question on “Who want to be a bigoted self pitying beltway millionare.”

    Past winners are Marty (thems mud people) Perez, lil (suck on this) Tommy, Oakshott snowglobe gazer (blacks iz dumb) Sully Sullivan. The list goes on and on and if you want to succeed, you’ve gotta be on the list.

  11. 11.

    Mojotron

    nitpick- wasn’t Ward Churchill ousted for fraud/making stuff up? His ridiculous comments brought attention to him, but I thought the university had a fairly good case for canning him because of the stuff that came out later on.

  12. 12.

    quaint irene

    What was so funny about William’s comments was the “he gets nervous when he’s on a plane and see’s people dressed as Muslims.”
    Cause yeah, if somebody was up to no good they’d want to make themselves stand out as much as possible.

  13. 13.

    jacy

    @chopper:

    You forgot atheists and agnostics. It’s okay to bash Muslims, gays, and the “non-religious.” And I would even say there is a thin line for Latinos. I mean, can any Latino really prove they’re not here illegally to bankrupt Medicaid and behead the local populace?

  14. 14.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    Could we at least use the term “the Marty-Peretz-New-Republic?” I liked TNR before he got a hold of it, and I still like Chait and Coen.

    More seriously, though, I haven’t heard anyone getting onto Republicans about interfering with a company’s right to fire someone at any time they want to, without reason. Juan had his first amendment right to make his statement, and they had a right to fire him. Heck if anyone’s 1A rights are being taken away, it’s the employees of NPR and FOX that aren’t being allowed to go to Stewart’s and Colbert’s rallies.

  15. 15.

    Culture of Truth

    there is always the New Republic. Hell, Williams probably already has done enough for the cause to deserve a Harvard honorarium.
    Failing that, NPR or CNN.

    Wait, even they don’t want him…?

  16. 16.

    Zifnab

    I can’t wait for the GOP to retake the house, so we can finally get the Full Employment For Racist Radio Pundits Act that this nation so desperately requires. Finally, we can address the looming unemployment crisis.

  17. 17.

    ChrisWWW

    I love the picture on Greenwald’s article.

    When I read this tweet by Joe Scarborough yesterday, I immediately thought that Joe was protecting his “right” to being bigoted on air in the future:
    “As a longtime fan of NPR, I find their intolerance distressing.”

  19. 19.

    Mojotron

    @Mojotron: Huh, turns out that the university did find that he made stuff up, but a jury later found that it alone wasn’t sufficient for his canning and that it likely was a pretext for getting rid of him.

    Still I agree with the rest of the examples, Churchill not so much.

  20. 20.

    Culture of Truth

    Muslim garb makes em nervous. Gays make em nervous. As do brown people, foreigners, hippies, elites, intellectuals, greenies and women. Conservatives are nervous all the time.

  21. 21.

    Paris

    I’d be sad too if I no longer had to work two jobs because one of my employers gave me a 1,000% raise.

  22. 22.

    cleek

    @ChrisWWW:
    i love the wingnut meme that requires liberals to be tolerant of intolerance (instead of trying to stomp it out) otherwise they’re being intolerant themselves.

    it’s like talking to a three year old.

  25. 25.

    Kryptik

    @LGRooney:

    Yeah, that’s kind of an idea that fell through. Then again, considering how much condensed fucking crazy we’re being subjected to these days, it’s not terribly surprising that it’s impossible to get away from. I wonder what idiot suggested it anywa-…ahem. Yeah, it was me. To be fair, it was more of a hope than a realistic suggestion.

  26. 26.

    Davis X. Machina

    @cleek:

    it’s like talking to a three year old.

    The difference being that while three-year-olds don’t listen, nor do they understand, they don’t stay three years old*. And even if you could stay three years old, no one would pay you to do it.

    *Oskar Matzerath excepted.

  27. 27.

    Kryptik

    @Culture of Truth:

    But they’ll be the first people to make damn sure that you know just how brave and manly and positively heroic they are in battling the menaces that plague our country. It’s not THEIR fault that they’re surrounded!

    Seriously, fucking pants-wetting fear peddled as bravery, and sanity and actual reasonable consideration painted as cowardice. What times we live in.

  28. 28.

    jl

    I agree with Greenwald on the issue of firing or banning people on the basis of one offensive statement: the idea of punishing expression of unpopular ideas is bad, but selective punishment of expression directed at some groups but not others is worse. So if we are going to censor people, then censor them as a fair and equitable basis as possible.

    I think it would have been better to not fire him, but put him on the spot to defend his nonsense the next time he was on NPR, but our fake media does not work that way.

    Maybe if NPR also said they fired Williams for saying idiotic sh*t, and could not be media pundit anymore, then there would be less fuss. But that would lead to trouble too, since then more than half of them would have to go.

    Really? He get’s scared of people dressed in any Muslim garb? Seriously? That kind of nonsense is worth spending a penny or second of one’s time on?

    As others have said, I guess if I see an Irishman with some green on he may be on his way to blow up a shopping center. Or a guy with a yarmulke, he might just be going to blow up a British hotel or assassinate a prime minister. Or a white dude in a wife beater and a baseball cap with a scraggly beard is on his way to blow up a federal building.

  30. 30.

    MikeBoyScout

    Frankly watching the wurlitzer do its somersaults over the lazy reporting and wingnut expressions of Williams is rather funny.

    My counter to the wingnut free expression oppression is that this is the free market working through creative destruction.
    See! FUX wins! Faux news viewers can watch him all the time and NPR listeners are destroyed because they are deprived of Williams’ senior analysis.

  32. 32.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    @jl: Except, as has been pointed out, this wasn’t the first statement, just the last.

    As most people have been pointing out, he should have been fired a long time ago. If they had kept him on, it would have looked like Michael Steele: The Republican Party continues to be racist until they fire him for being incompetent.

  33. 33.

    MikeJ

    @jl: His contract said he wasn’t supposed to express his opinions, popular or un. NPR had graciously allowed him to moonlight under very light restrictions and he ignored those few rules. So he got canned.

  34. 34.

    wobblybits

    Maybe Juan Williams should use this handy guide to help him spot the muslim? Evidently the wily bunch is not as easily pegged down as he would like us to think.

  35. 35.

    jl

    @MikeJ: Yeah, that might be true. He had been violating NPR’s guidelines for years and tNPR was afraid to do anything about it, so it might be that this was the excuse NPR needed: saying something obviously over the line and obviously dumb.

    But how does Williams’ violation of his contract and basic ethical guidelines make him any different from other media celeb pundits? Broder for example?

    I am operating off the assumption that NPR’s public rationale is the true one.

  36. 36.

    LGRooney

    @Kryptik: That’s fully understandable, i.e., subjection with which we are incessantly bombarded. I’d propose Saturday since there are no talk shows of note, people may be recovering from Friday evening, etc. Of course, “they” will then turn on the 6th-day craziness, you know, just to spite us.

  37. 37.

    New Yorker

    OT, but this Sullivan post (yeah, I know) is worth a read:

    http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/10/the-military-thugs-of-a-potential-senator.html

    Much of the right really has gone full metal Pinochet at this point, haven’t they? They’re ready to destroy the republic in order to save it. “For the glory of the fatherland”, “the current government is illegitimate”, etc.

    It’s quite terrifying. I’ve idly wondered on occasion what country I should escape to should this movement ever gain total control over the US government. Austria is high on the list. I loved Vienna.

  38. 38.

    MikeJ

    @wobblybits: From the link: This is Shohreh Aghdashloo. She is Muslim and she is wearing a green dress.
    But not a real green dress, that’s cruel.

  39. 39.

    Steve

    @Mojotron:

    Huh, turns out that the university did find that he made stuff up, but a jury later found that it alone wasn’t sufficient for his canning and that it likely was a pretext for getting rid of him.

    It’s also worth noting that the jury awarded him a whopping $1 in damages.

  40. 40.

    Mike

    Speaking of the First Amendment, remember this?:

    Dunkin Donuts received so many complaints about the scarf, they pulled the ad. Michelle Malkin commented on the decision:

    It’s refreshing to see an American company show sensitivity to the concerns of Americans opposed to Islamic jihad and its apologists. Too many of them bend over backwards in the direction of anti-American political correctness. Naturally, liberal commentators on the Internet are now up in arms over Dunkin Donut’s decision to yank the ad and mock anyone who expresses concern over the keffiyeh’s symbolism.

    It’s just a scarf, the clueless keffiyeh-wearers scoff. Would they say the same of fashion designers who marketed modified Klan-style hoods in Burberry plaid as the next big thing? Fashion statements may seem insignificant, but when they lead to the mainstreaming of violence—unintentionally or not–they matter. Ignorance is no longer an excuse. In post-9/11 America, vigilance must never go out of style.

  42. 42.

    Svensker

    @Mike:

    In post-9/11 America, vigilance must never go out of style.

    Dear Michelle Malkin, as part of my own vigilance against assholery I have this immense wish to shoot up your behind with buckshot. I know it is not very Quakerly to want to blast someone in the butt with lead, but you try my patience. You really really try my patience.

    Yours sincerely,

    Svensker, The Struggling Quaker

  43. 43.

    Phoenix Woman

    By the way, Juan Williams isn’t just an anti-Muslim bigot, he’s also — as fifty-odd female WaPo employees have attested — a pretty vile sexist and apparent Mister Grabass along the lines of Clarence Thomas, who he defended hotly back in 1991:

    ———-

    Washington Post Magazine reporter Juan Williams said yesterday [November 1, 1991] that the newspaper has disciplined him for what he called “wrong” and “inappropriate” verbal conduct toward women staffers and he apologized to his colleagues.

    […]

    Williams’s letter came several hours after about 50 female employees met with Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. and said they objected to The Post’s refusal to say how the paper had resolved allegations of verbal sexual harassment against Williams. The newspaper’s management has maintained that such personnel inquiries must remain confidential.

    […]

    The disclosure came five days after a Williams column on The Post’s op-ed page in which he said that Anita Hill had “no credible evidence” for her allegations of sexual harassment by Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, but that Hill was “prompted” to make her charges by Democratic Senate staffers. The Post’s personnel inquiry had begun more than two weeks earlier, but the column angered many women in the newsroom, and several came forward to say that they had also had problems with Williams. Post editors say they decided to make a public statement after WRC-TV aired a report on the controversy.

    […]

    Seven women said in on-the-record interviews yesterday that Williams had repeatedly made hostile and sexually explicit comments to them, in some cases over a period of several years. All of them said they believed the comments were meant to embarrass them, not an attempt to date them, and most said that Williams persisted despite their protests.

    Jo Ellen Murphy, art director of the Weekend section, said that “he was obsessed with my sex life and that’s all he wanted to talk to me about . . . . I raised my voice at him and said, ‘Just don’t talk to me again.’ “

  44. 44.

    George

    “all of the respect that he earned in his long career immediately began to disappear.”

    I’ve detested Juan Williams ever since he trashed “Talk of the Nation” with his crappy work.

  46. 46.

    azlib

    Poor Juan Williams. He goes to Fox and gets a $2 million contract the next day. What a martyr to the cause.

  49. 49.

    lamh32

    OT, but excuse my Obot sigh at this story:

    Even kids love Obama in Palo Alto

    PALO ALTO, Calif. – After a day of campaigning with college students, small-business owners and high-rolling Democratic donors, President Obama stopped to charm some of the country’s smallest Americans.

    Obama left a $30,400-a-plate fundraiser in a wealthy neighborhood in the San Francisco area on Thursday and walked across the street to greet a bunch of kids who were standing on the edge of the curb holding a sign that told the president how much they love him.

    He bent down and shook their little hands, trying to make small talk. “I wish I was in my PJs,” he told one girl who was wearing hers.
    “Thank you so much for the sign,” he said to the kids holding it up.

    And then he leaned down and autographed it, prompting several thank-yous from the parents who were standing behind the children. As Obama continued down the line, a boy piped up. “Show him your picture,” he said loudly. It was enough to encourage another, shier boy to produce two drawings he’d made for Obama.

    He handed them over to the president, who thanked him and held them out for inspection. One drawing was of Obama as a stick-figure in a suit with a very red face. The other was of a building that looked like a castle, presumably of the White House.

    “Now, I’m a little red-faced,” Obama said playfully as he examined the rendering of himself.
    “This is after I’m talking to some of my Republican colleagues,” he concluded. The president autographed the drawings, too, eliciting another round of thank-yous from the adults.

    “You guys work hard; the least we can do is have a president who does, too,” Obama said before he was whisked off in the presidential motorcade.

  50. 50.

    Svensker

    @lamh32:

    “Now, I’m a little red-faced,” Obama said playfully as he examined the rendering of himself.
    “This is after I’m talking to some of my Republican colleagues,” he concluded.

    This is why I’d rather have a beer with O than with Dubya.

  58. 58.

    lamh32

    You’re Making a Bad Mistake, Juan Williams

    What a week Juan Williams has had! From mild-mannered NPR analyst and Fox News liberal stand-in to multimillionaire full-time Fox News guy, thanks to one dumb comment. Fair warning, Juan: you’re about to throw away your entire career. Needlessly…

    Juan, we now fear—and we wish we didn’t, but we do—that you have swallowed the Fox News company line. Which is that you are a hero. A heroic martyr, sacrificed upon the altar of NPR’s left-wing liberal correctness. Of course you are smarter than that, Juan, but it’s surely difficult to think very clearly when your brand new friends on the right are rushing to your defense and attacking the mean people who just fired you and dumping $2 million in your lap.

    …But here is what is much easier to see from the outside than it is for you to see from where you’re sitting, Juan: You are not a hero. You’re a decent guy who said something dumb. Apologize, try to improve, and move on. More importantly, these people, these newfound supporters, Sarah Palin and Bill O’Reilly and Mike Huckabee and Pat Buchanan and Roger Ailes, are not your friends. They are using you, Juan. They are using you because of who you suddenly are: a black, moderate, journalist who was fired from NPR for saying you don’t like Muslims.

    Those credentials are extremely valuable for Fox News, and for the right wing at large. Because they can be easily presented in a way that bolsters the myth of the “liberal media,” a myth which the right wing has used to shockingly successful effect over the last two decades, to systematically erode the influence of media outlets that they don’t like. Respected, earnest, good media outlets. Like NPR. Now, Juan, you are a convenient tool in their furtherance of this campaign. $2 million is cheap, for them…

  59. 59.

    Phoenix Woman

    @lamh32: Kids absolutely adore Obama. It’s universal. I remember reading somewhere — and danged if I can find it now — that some wingnuts were embarrassed as hell because their kids were ecstatic that they got to see Obama at school.

  60. 60.

    Southern Beale

    Oh please. Give me a fucking break. This is just the excuse RWers have been praying for to divert attention away from the Teanut Clown Car and all the stoooopid shit O’Donnel/Angle/Paladino have been saying which has tarnished their brand.

    Oh, and to send out some fundraising e-mails. Like we don’t see this for what it is!

    God I hate our discourse in this country. 99.9% of it means nothing. Here’s my little run-down of the last few times we had to pull out the fainting couches. I mean honestly, I had to look this shit up because I didn’t remember it, and some of it was just 3 weeks ago!

  61. 61.

    Wannabe Speechwriter

    What pisses me off the most about the whole Williams affair is how all of his supporters seem to think being a pundit is a God given right. It’s entirely NPR’s decision who they will broadcast on air and who they will employ. If tomorrow they fire Terry Gross and replace her with Newt Gingrich, that’s their choice, just like it’s my choice not to listen to them. You have to have something wrong with you to honestly believe that Juan Williams has an inalienable right to work for NPR…

  64. 64.

    Karen

    The American Media didn’t learn a lesson today, they just got their own beliefs validated and clarified.

    The GOP, Tea Party and the Right Wing are UNTOUCHABLES.

    Anything they say is gospel, it never need to be verified. They can say whatever they want and you will pay for exposing any wrong they do. And if you receive government funding, you must bow to them and let them do whatever they wish or you will be DESTROYED.

    All Muslims are terrorists and whoever says so should never be punished for speaking the truth. It doesn’t matter that all muslims are not terrorists, the GOP, Tea Party and Right Wing say it’s so therefore, it’s true. Any attemps to prove otherwise will not only ruin your life but also the life of your friends and your family.

    A GOP, Tea Party and Right Wing member has the God given right to do whatever they want including: stealing, cheating, harrassing, raping and killing. If you dare to expose it say goodbye to your career.

    The following groups are the enemy and must be treated as such: Muslims, gays, minorities – especially blacks and latinos/latinas, non-Christians, poor people and anyone who is to the left of John Birch. Leftist Jews are the enemy as well. The enemies list is added to every second and your network/newspaper/magazine will be anhilated if you’re found to be a sympathizer.

    Most important: Barack Obama is enemy number one because he is a black Muslim socialist. It doesn’t matter that it’s not factually true. You don’t want to be on the wrong side when the impeachment happens.

    Have I left any out?

  65. 65.

    eemom

    @Steve:

    That is killer cute!

    My son pasted Obama stickers all over his little bicycle back in 2008. And he made a little poster in school saying that he was “100% Democrat” with lots of drawings and comments about the candidates. I have it framed. [mushy mom love]

  67. 67.

    salacious crumb

    and if New Republic doesnt work out, he can always go to the the adult entertainment industry and blow Marty Peretz in a feature film called Don Juan and Marty Mart do each other

  69. 69.

    Mike E

    Then there’s Diane Rheem fluffing Mara Liasson today, because, you know, wink wink, she ain’t swarthy or sumptin.

    NPR must have been good at some point for me to be a regular listener, but, apart from This American Life and The Splendid Table, they really got nuthin.

  71. 71.

    bemused

    This topic is filling up a lot of air time on cable news. They get to dissect NPR for hours and opinionate with advice for NPR. On Morning Joe, I heard that NPR should have more diverse voices (I think that was Mika with Joe agreeing) and that we have a shitload of listening options now including satellite radio.
    Oh right, we have so many options. On xmradio, there is the America Left channel and nothing else all progressive. The channel with Hannity, Levin and all the other rightwingers is called the Patriot Channel. I guess they couldn’t get away with calling the Left channel unpatriotic.

  72. 72.

    jl

    @Karen:

    I spotted one mistake: “poor people” should be changed to “anyone who is not wealthy”. Other than that, strong work, keep it up! I agree.

    I also agree with the commenter above who said it is a mistake to pay too much attention to this. In itself, it is minor story. I do disagree to the extent that, if the Tea Peoples want to make it big issue, and try to start a bamboozlement campaign on public broadcasting over it, then we do need to pay attention to the story.

  74. 74.

    jak

    OTH there was Diane Rheem asking, during the Juan Williams discussion, about the Helen Thomas firing and why no one spoke up for her. The silence from the panel was deafening. Awkward pause and then Diane Rheem moved on.

  75. 75.

    jl

    @bemused: Mika with Joe talk about diversity of opinion? I think that is funny. Wish I had seen it. But I cannot stand that kind of show, so I miss the rare bits of comic relief.

  76. 76.

    Dennis SGMM

    So I put on NPR this morning and heard Warren Olney describe Williams’ firing as “a public relations disaster.” WTF? The only disaster I see is NPR paying attention to the shrieks of outrage from the same Wurlitzer that crowed when Helen Thomas was forced into retirement.

    Lamentably, I was unable to continue listening and I tuned to a geezer rock station for the sake of my blood pressure.

  77. 77.

    MTiffany

    Hell, Williams probably already has done enough for the cause to deserve a Harvard honorarium.

    Or a cushy gig at Cato or the AEI.

  78. 78.

    Onkel Bob

    @Mojotron: Umm, a civil jury is not the best judge in a case such as Churchill’s. He violated two academic rules – he committed plagiarism and sock-puppetry. In the first case, he lifted word for word multiple author’s works without ever attributing the source. In the second, he submitted anonymous – pseudonymous entries to a journal, then cited those entries in support of his argument. While neither will get you much punishment from any court, both are in direct violation of nearly every honor code of every academic institution (except of course, ORU, Bob Jones, and Liberty).
    W. Churchill reaped what he sowed.

  79. 79.

    Mike E

    @cleek: Click n Clack are fun, but do they make up for the execrable Neal Conan and that awful Ken Ruden? It’s making me drink more and more…

  80. 80.

    bemused

    @Phoenix Woman:
    Those tax cuts=job growth worked out for George as well as no new taxes and budget bamboozling has for Pawlenty. Tom Rukavina cited some state stats that Timmy has created 624 jobs in Minn each year he has been gov. 624. Awesome.

  81. 81.

    Kryptik

    Again, regardless of how consequential this might be in the far run, it’s still one of those horribly telling incidents, where the reactions reveal more than the actual incident itself. And the incident has simply proven that there’s simply nothing that will make Anti-Islam bigotry out of vogue any time in the near future.

  85. 85.

    beergoggles

    @New Yorker: There are too any nukes here to escape to another country. The only hope we have is to beat them into submission for the second time, and this time when we beat the south, we’ll take our nukes and build a wall so they don’t infect our government with teh stupid ever again.

  87. 87.

    patrick II

    Hypocrisy is not the worst aspect for me. The worst aspect for me is the right wing’s out front support of straightforward bias and bigotry. Donahue, Maher, Churchill, et al at least have some (sometimes incorrect) rationale for the viewpoints that got them fired. Those views certainly were not supported by the right but their right to speak them should have been. To speak now in what appears to be a similar context appears to be hyprocisy. But the statement, to paraphrase, “I am afraid of Muslims, and that’s ok because that’s the way I really feel” is different from a statement supported by some rationale. It is pure emotional bias and should be considered so clearly abhorrent that it should be impossible to defend by anyone speaking on the national stage. Amazingly to me, it isn’t.

  88. 88.

    Norman Rogers

    What has Juan Williams ever done to distinguish himself?

    Nothing.

    His resume now consists of being fired for intemperate remarks. If the man was any kind of thinker or commenter or pundit or even any kind of intellectual, all well and good.

    I call this “working them refs” because Juan Williams isn’t being used because Juan Williams is anything special; he’s the reference point for the next major firing or termination for cause.

  89. 89.

    Chuck Butcher

    @patrick II:
    wouldn’t you kind of think that if you piss off your employer there might be a negative outcome? To be sure, I’d like to hear a bit more shit kicking of the political correctness that passes muster with the Right, but the guy signing the paycheck does have a say about his business.

  92. 92.

    patrick II

    @Chuck Butcher:
    I agree. Like any other job, you should be good at what you do, and if your job is to speak well and coherently discuss the issues of the day it is clear that saying incoherent racist bile does not live up to that standard. It would be like an electrician laying a bare wire across the living room rug. He would be fired.
    I am old enough to remember Walter Cronkite, and I have this picture of what would happen if Walter had said that he was justifiably afraid of blacks ( the right’s target of that time) and would not want to sit next to one on the bus. The country would have been in shock, I mean open-mouthed, falling down shock, and even Walter might not have avoided being canned.
    Juan Williams is no Walter, but the difference is beyond a grand canyon sized gap. The total cluelessness (he still doesn’t seem to understand what he did wrong) is not something I ever expected to see in a “news” person participating in the national dialogue.

  93. 93.

    shortstop

    @Wannabe Speechwriter:

    What pisses me off the most about the whole Williams affair is how all of his supporters seem to think being a pundit is a God given right. It’s entirely NPR’s decision who they will broadcast on air and who they will employ. If tomorrow they fire Terry Gross and replace her with Newt Gingrich, that’s their choice, just like it’s my choice not to listen to them. You have to have something wrong with you to honestly believe that Juan Williams has an inalienable right to work for NPR…

    When you’re completely immersed in tribal mentality and also remarkably stupid, celebrities (including what passes for journalists) seem like real friends to you. Wingnuts take this kind of thing very personally, as though they or a close family member has been sinned against.

    You know all those letters snail mailed to People magazine and similar outlets expressing earnest desire that some actor or singer (always referred to by first name as though the writer is a close pal) “has finally found love” or “deserves a second chance,” or earnestly taking sides in some celebrity divorce? Yeah, lefties aren’t writing those.

  95. 95.

    Chuck Butcher

    I generally like Bill Mahr, he is as politically correct as anybody on the right and I understood him getting fired. I not only have to build good houses, but I also can’t have my crew mooning the owners/buyers. More to the point, I have had occassion to tell a crew to tone down the profanities in volume and ‘extent.’ (no, I’m not mild mannered)

    The proliferation of national “news” outlets seems to have led to a degeneration of quality. Maybe there really aren’t enough people good at the job to fill the demand. Then there is the aspect of ratings and profit.

  96. 96.

    Nutella

    Williams is a jerk and NPR should have fired him long ago, of course, but I gave up on NPR a while back. Their move to the right was just too depressing to listen to.

    The last straw for me was a piece where they went to interview some of the Israeli settlers and went on and on about what wonderful people they are, getting downright teary about it, without ONCE mentioning that the settlements are considered by many to be illegal or even that the settlements might possibly be a tiny bit controversial.

    Leaving that out made it straight-up AIPAC propaganda. I don’t listen to NPR any more.

  97. 97.

    Svensker

    @Maody:

    That is wonderful. But wrong. Obviously, Muslims can’t look like “normal” people because then they wouldn’t be boogety boogety scary and stuff, so those must be fake Muslims. Or maybe they are the “muslins” and “mooslems” we keep hearing about?

  98. 98.

    burnspbesq

    Shorter Greenwald: the Right is full of hypocrites.

    Shorter Me: Glenn, call me when you’re about to break some actual news.

  99. 99.

    Mnemosyne

    @shortstop:

    I do publicly take sides in celebrity divorces, but I’ve never felt compelled to write to People or US and tell them about it.

  100. 100.

    mattH

    Uncle Tom?

    I say yes.

    (+2 or so)

    he proliferation of national “news” outlets seems to have led to a degeneration of quality. Maybe there really aren’t enough people good at the job to fill the demand.

    Considering the pool of bloggers out there, I’d say their choices are more calculated than lacking. Feature, not bug.

  101. 101.

    Maody

    @Svensker: the Juan Williams muslim fashion show is updating as the evening goes on… it is marvelous indeed.

    i’m more scared of the white BIG U.S. BANK MAN teabagger county commissioner candidate running in here in central NC who was so nice to direct me – at the early voting site – where I might get a snack. no really, he told me, just up the road, dear… he called me dear and i’m at least 15 years older than he. asshat

    okay, the farker really didn’t scare me, unless he gets elected. the condescension just oozed crazy so i got up in his face and said, “i’ve lived here since i was a kid. that’s 45 more years than you and you are not getting my vote.”

    his clothes scared me. tailored shirt and pants. oh noes!

  102. 102.

    honus

    @jak: Diane is an arab, too.
    Rehm was born in Washington, D.C. to Wadie Aed and Eugenie Zouekie, Christian Arabs from Mersin, Turkey.

  103. 103.

    bob h

    One of these days the Muslim bashers are going to get a serious fatwa put on them. Given the alacrity with which Muslims put fatwas on cartoonists who offend them, why not O’Reilly, Gingrich, Murdoch, et. al? The bed-wetting would be something to behold.

  104. 104.

    Kenneth Almquist

    @bob h:

    Some Muslims are very touchy about insults to God or the Prophet, but the propagandists on the right don’t want to admit that Islam is a religion, so they aren’t likely to go there. In other words, these folks have nothing to fear from Muslims, and I bet they know that. It’s their followers how are confused.

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