Juan Williams Icon of Free Speech
Juan Williams saw his 10 year association with National Public Radio [NPR] come to an abrupt end Wednesday as a result of comments made while on Fox News Channel’s The Factor with Bill O’reilly. After cautioning O’reilly about blaming Muslims in general as the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks he made the comment:
“… 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.”
The topic was Bill’s dust up with Joy Behar and Whoopy Goldberg of ABC’s The View over the public perception of a Mosque at Ground Zero. The View panelists became so incensed when Bill insisted that the majority of Americans blamed Muslims for the attacks that they stormed off the set. Regardless of weather the statement is “politically correct” or not it is a fact.
The Council For American-Islamic Relations[CAIR] issued a press release on Wednesday slamming Williams and demanding his termination at NPR. And in today’s progressive world multi-culturalism trumps free speech particularly at the publicly funded NPR. And if you’re liberal, appear on Fox News, and are unwilling to aggressively press the progressive agenda you are not welcome on NPR. Mara Liasson, another NPR correspondent who, like Juan Williams, is a Fox News contributor may have been the next victim if the backlash against the Juan Williams firing hadn’t been so widespread.
This may have passed as just another battle of the cable news networks or belligerent progressive talking heads attacking a turncoat if not for the fact that the perpetrator of the attack was the publicly funded NPR and the victim of the assault was the widely respected Juan Williams. His statements or comments are always respected as an honest expression of his liberal beliefs regardless of the perspective of the participants in the discussion.
Unable to bare the glare of free speech the liberal media has increasingly resorted to political correctness to cloak their agenda where that may conflict with the wishes of the average American or the principals underlying the Constitution of the United States. While most citizens are poorly educated regarding those principals their instincts raise suspicions as evidenced by yesterday’s Rasmussen Reports survey showing 6 in 10 such sensibilities are overdone.