Have a Nice Life at Fox, Juan
A little more on the firing of Juan Williams, and the abuse I took for attacking him:
Some good remarks from Michael Tomasky at the Guardian:
One party rule; enforced ideology- things he'll never, never encounter at his new home, Fox News. Do I even need to point out that you could hear the same words coming from Sean Hannity or Glenn Beck?
I restate my claim: This guy was never a liberal. He was never anything but one of those phony liberals employed by the mainstream press to put up against right wing tough guys, with the intent of reinforcing the perception that liberals are weak-kneed and without values. He played this role with gusto, and now he's getting his reward: $2 million a year from Rupert Murdoch.
Some good remarks from Michael Tomasky at the Guardian:
"what sort of non-conservative – one perceives Williams to be some degree of liberal; he'd probably protest that he's just a reporter; in either case, he's not a conservative – agreed to be an in-house flunky at Fox? ...if you're any kind of liberal at all, even in the softest and most non-political possible sense, it's basically an indefensible thing to do.
Fox News wants liberalism to perish from the face of the earth. Going on their air on a regular basis and lending your name and reputation to their ideological razzle-dazzle is like agreeing to be the regular kulak guest columnist at Pravda in 1929. For "balance".
That's because he is not a liberal.
And a quote from Williams, courtesy of Talking Points Memo:
""This is evidence of one-party rule and one sided thinking at NPR that leads to enforced ideology, speech and writing. It leads to people, especially journalists, being sent to the gulag for raising the wrong questions and displaying independence of thought."
One party rule; enforced ideology- things he'll never, never encounter at his new home, Fox News. Do I even need to point out that you could hear the same words coming from Sean Hannity or Glenn Beck?
I restate my claim: This guy was never a liberal. He was never anything but one of those phony liberals employed by the mainstream press to put up against right wing tough guys, with the intent of reinforcing the perception that liberals are weak-kneed and without values. He played this role with gusto, and now he's getting his reward: $2 million a year from Rupert Murdoch.
Comments
From SF's blog:
"We cannot pray in publicly-funded schools because it would supposedly violate the First Amendment freedom of religion rights of those who don't believe in prayer. Based upon that screwed up liberal illogic, NPR violated Juan Williams' right to free speech under the same amendment to the US Constitution."
NPR does take some tax-funded money, but it also depends on contributions from private corporations, and individual donations.
It does not depend ENTIRELY on tax dollars, so the government did NOT shut down Juan Williams' free speech.
Public schools are ENTIRELY supported by government tax dollars, and are therefore prohibited by our Constitution from favoring one or any religion's prayers in school.
Juan Williams apparently violated one of his agreed to conditions of employment with NPR. He demonstrated publicly his overt prejudice toward Muslims.
How could he fairly remark on anything to do with Muslims on NPR on any subject dealing with Muslims after he indicted ALL Muslims?
They ALL scare him.
In the '30s Germans were told ALL Jews were repulsive devils and to be loathed.
And in the not distant past, in Rwanda, the Hutus publicly broadcast that ALL TUTSIS were cockroaches and were to be eliminated.
That SF doesn't see the inherent harm and danger in remarks that denigrate an entire group of people only shows that perhaps he harbors those prejudices himself.
NPR was entirely correct.