“Let me explain how it works to you. I’m the anchor, your’e the guest. I’m the interviewer you are the interviewee.”
“The self described FOX News “anchor” was probably a Miss America contestant. God Bless America. God Bless the First Amendment. But not you bloodthirsty Moslems.
I’ve been chewing over the Juan Williams firing at NPR for a while now. I’ll be the first to say NPR was clumsy. But the defenders of Williams must not have given a lot of thought about the kind of thing he said about people wearing Moslem garb on airplanes. Would a Menonite wearing his black hat and sporting a long beard be telling other passengers that he first and formost associated himself with his religion? How about a Jew with a yarmaluke? What would Juan think about passengers getting nervous with a black man wearing copious amounts of gold jewlery and black shades? Would he be signaling that he identifed with gangstahood over Red Blooded Americanism?
These are all worthy academic questions but Juan was very quick to give Bill O’Reilly a pass on his really crude assertion that the world’s Moslems are out to get America. In a way his reputation as a historian of the US Civil Right movement lends O’Reilly’s program legitimacy. In fact he uses it to defend himself when he begins to explain his qualms about Moslems on a plane:
“You know Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the Civil Rights movement.”
I suspect that Williams removal from NPR has long been considered and that the Moslem garb quote was a last straw. He’s got a two million contract with FOX now so its hard to feel sorry for him or Fox. It now enjoys William’s civil right’s street cred to project their famous “fair and balanced reporting. It reminds me a bit of Sen. Jesse Helms famous black Senate Staffer. I guess we should all be happier now.
