Jesh Foundation

This is a perfect example of political correctness gone amok.

Juan Williams, a best selling author of several books on the civil right movement in America, was fired from his job at National Public Radio for comments he made on the O’Reilly Factor on the Fox News Channel. Williams, an African American and self-proclaimed moderate liberal, spoke in answer to a question from Bill O’Reilly as to whether O’Reilly was right when he said the previous week on “The View” that Muslims attacked us on 9/11. After O’Reilly made his remark, both Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar, stood up in anger and stomped off the set.

“I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot,” Williams answered. “But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”

In addition to his television, radio and newspaper work, Williams has written several books including the biography “Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary” and “Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965.” His impressive resume includes working for the Washington Post for 21 years as an editorial writer and op-ed columnist, in addition to appearing regularly on NPR Radio for the past 10 years. Yet all this meant nothing to the bigwigs at NPR Radio, who obviously were looking for a reason to fire Williams.

Williams’ comment was made on a Monday night. But it wasn’t until he got a phone call on Wednesday afternoon, that he knew he had been given the ax. On the phone, a high level manager told Williams he was being fired because his remarks on The O’Reilly Factor this past Monday were inconsistent with NPR’s editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR. Williams asked for a face-to-face meeting, but was told that the decision already had been made and nothing he could say would make them change their minds about his firing.

But wait, then it gets worse.

When NPR CEO Vivian Schiller was asked about Williams’ firing, she said she regretted that NPR executives did not meet with Williams in person to discuss their decision. But that Williams comments represented the latest in a series of deeply troubling incidents, and that Williams had previously been warned that the things he said previously violated NPR standards. Williams has since denied that any previous discussions about his conduct ever took place with anyone at NPR.

But then Schiller said inexplicable, that Williams’ comments were between “him and his shrink.” indicating that Williams either had already had, or should seek psychiatric help. Williams took great offense to Schiller’s remark and well he should. Schiller has since apologized, but according to Williams, she did not apologize to him.

Yet things did not turn out so bad for Williams in the long run. After he was fired from NPR Radio, Fox News awarded him a three-year contract reportedly worth $2 million.

Still, the question remains – did Williams’ remarks cause his firing? Or was it done for some other reason; for instance, his cosiness with Fox News, where he appeared often as the liberal viewpoint on a mostly conservative television station? NPR, for all it’s claims of fairness, has a decidedly left wing bent, and according to Williams, they were just looking for a reason to fire him, because they abhorred the fact he was seen so often on the hated Fox Network.

The facts seem to point to the latter. Case in point.

In 1995, Nina Totenberg, who also is an employee of NPR radio, said about Senator Jess Helms that if there was “retributive justice” in the world, Helms, or one of his grandkid deserved to get AIDS from a transfusion, because Helms was a strict opponent of gay rights. Despite that hideous remark, Totenberg is still NPR’s legal affairs correspondent.

Why wasn’t Totenberg fired? Certainly what she said was much more outrageous than anything Williams ever said. Could it be that Ms. Totenberg is a regular on the liberal network MSNBC, and has never appeared on Fox?

The feisty Williams did not go away quietly. In an interview on Fox and Friends, Williams said the government should end all funding for NPR. He said, “If they want to compete in the marketplace, they should compete in the marketplace. They don’t need public funds. I think that they should go out there. They think their product is so great, go out and sell the product.”

NPR reportedly gets only 2% of it’s funding from the government. In fact, ultra-liberal financier George Soros recently gave $1.8 million to NPR to hire 100 reporters across America. Is this Soros’ way of buying political (read “liberal”) influence at NPR? Sure sounds like it.

So maybe Juan Williams is right. Maybe NPR has a far left agenda, and if you don’t run with their liberal football, they have no place for you at National Public Radio.

If that’s the case, the next sound you hear will be the coffin closing on fair-minded journalism in America. And for that reason alone, the government should vote to end all funding to NPR Radio, just as a matter of principle. I’m sure this will come up on Congress’ agenda after the new year. It will be interesting to see how they vote on this issue. And who votes for and against.

Williams’ firing has caused outrage in both Democratic and Republican circles. It’s quite possible that de-funding NPR may get bipartisan support. As well it should.