See Ya, Juan!

Juan Williams agreeing with Bill O'Reilly's comments on the now infamous The View segment in which Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar walked off the set:

"...I think you’re right. I think, look, political correctness can lead to some kind of paralysis where you don’t address reality.
I mean, look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. 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."

Did it ever occur to Williams that the 9/11 hijackers were NOT wearing Muslim garb? So according to Williams, we have more to fear from someone wearing "Muslim garb" than someone who isn't. Remind me again what the Times Square Bomber was wearing? So finally, NPR, which over a year ago asked Williams not to identify himself as an NPR analyst while on O'Reilly's show, has had enough.

NPR announced late on Wednesday night that it has terminated the contract of longtime analyst Juan Williams over his comments... In a statement, NPR said that it had informed Williams of its decision on Wednesday night, and that his remarks were "inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR."

A quick Google search will find that right wing bloggers are outraged, OUTRAGE I TELL YOU!, that Williams was fired for "no particular reason" or for "telling the truth" and are blaming Think Progress and The Huffington Post for... well for reporting the incident I suppose.

Even the Morning Joe crew was appalled at the firing. And just recently, Joe Scarborough tweeted this:



Actually, Joe, no. Williams was fired for saying he gets nervous on a plane when he sees people wearing Muslim garb.

But here's one question that these people should answer: If it's okay for Rick Sanchez to be fired for saying Jews run the media, and it's okay for Helen Thomas to be forced out for saying that Jews should get out of Palestine, then why is this particular firing an outrage? It couldn't be because one religion is to be revered and the other is to be vilified, could it?

Well at least Williams if now free to express his opinion on Fox News full time without having to worry about damaging NPR's credibility.