Political correctness run amok. What is next damning the Danish cartoonists or plans for a national boycott of South Park. No chance NPR will be running a story on Amazon's wickedly funny but horribly anti-PC satire, "How Fatima Started Islam: Mohammad's Daughter Tells It All". Taxpayer dollars to tell us how safe it is for everybody in Pakistan.

I'm no fan of Fox, but what did Williams say that wasn't true?

Bout freakin' time...

Looks like FOX just picked up their new pseudo-liberal plant. Bout time they found a suitable Alan Colmes replacement for Hannity.

Williams, like Cokie Roberts, has been a neo-con shill for ages. This is no surprise.

what exactly is "Muslim garb"?

Williams is just an enabler of the very bigotry he claims not to possess. Let all the trash stay on that Faux Infotainment Channel. Of course his firing will make him a darling of the bigots.

"Terrorist Attacks on U.S. Soil by Group, From 1980 to 2005, According to FBI Database"

[Mooslims: 6%]

http://www.loonwatch.com/2010/01/not-all-terr...

Williams has been masquerading as a liberal for some time now. He deserved to get fired for his blatantly bigoted comment. The rightwing will view it as a badge of honor.

Muslin garb? If he had put it something like, "Look, there is a stereotype that one can't escape. Post 9-11 when you fly and you see someone dressed in certain attire carrying a bag you can't help but have certain thoughts." I don't think anyone could argue with that. But he would also need to add, course, that all Muslims are not terrorists, just like all doctor killers aren't Christians (although most profess to be). It is obvious what he said reveals his personal nature on this subject. Not a bigot? That's like the joke "There's two things I can't stand, bigots and homosexuals."
However, if he agrees with Bill-O, what not discuss WHY some people of the Muslim faith want to do us harm? Could it be the United States' constant presence and influence in Middle Eastern land and affairs? Oh, no, they hate us for our freedom, I forgot.

I don't think he should have been fired for that particularly, but both he and Rick Sanchez weren't doing particularly well for the field of journalism in America at the time so I'm not too sad about it. What happened to curiosity and investigative journalism in America.

What is next is they'll fire people like Van Jones for questioning things the corporate funders find objectionable. Then we'll be in real trouble.

there was nothing racist about his remarks.

not log after 9/11 and the failed shoe bomber i flew from boston to d.c. i had a middle eastern man sitting in my row. he was very fidgety, he looked uncomfortable, he was sweating a lot and he kept reaching down to his shoes. during the whole flight i was nervous and wondering if there was a chance he was a terrorist.

there's nothing wrong with those feelings and nothing racist about them. he could have been sick or had a fear of flying but being so close to the terrorist attacks it was perfectly normal for me to have those concerns.

and i've told the story to other people. i was never accused of being racist. it's exactly what juan williams experienced.

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.

And why do you think that would be, Juan? Why would simply the presence of Muslims have you quaking in your boots? Where would you get these ideas from? Did they also have bright red sticks of TNT strapped to them, as they stared ahead of them muttering "Allah ackbar" to themselves?

Chickenshit conservative cowards. Bin-Laden whooped you good. And you helped.

" 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.”

From what i have seen, the 911 terrorist and all that have followed and have been capruted do not dress in traditional garb.
His comment shows a bigotry in the basic fact that just seeing a person dressed in the tradition of their faith or nation automatically makes them a radical terrorist and someone that needs to be feared and watched closely.
Sadly though, his FOX "cred" just went through the roof. how long before he has his own show? we all know FOX loves them some right wing nitwits "censored and fired by the libral media".

if someone on Faux (say Billy or the Beckster) said, "When I have to sit next to an African American on a plane, I get very nervous." ????

The Right and all of their corpora-fascist buds have one mantra: Always FEAR the OTHER! Doesn't matter if it's skin color, religion, ethnic origins or political ideology....if it can be made to seem somehow different, you must be afraid.

The only Good people are rich white anglo-saxon males... got it!?! (Although, they seem to have forgotten that gawd's chosen people are not of that ilk.?! # : )

I'm tired of the following bullshit:

"Politically Correct":
I'm tired of this bullshit idea being bandied about by people who are NOT in politics. People who AREN'T being elected. I'm tired of it being used to imply "we're all racist and sexist, and we just pretend not to be". Fuck you! We're NOT all racist and sexist. We don't ALL fear people in turbans on airplanes, but just "keep our mouth shut about it". We don't all stop ourselves from grabbing ass and demeaning our female coworkers just because we might face a lawsuit.
Your racism and sexism isn't the "natural state" of man, it's an attitude that has been programmed into you, which you don't want to stare down. I'm sorry if you're weak-minded, but don't go projecting your shit onto me.

"Muslims are the biggest threat":
Terrorism is NOT the biggest threat to this country. You will NOT die in a terrorist attack. A muslim is NOT going to kill you. If you die in this way, you are a statistical outlier. You'll be sitting at the pearly gates next to the guy killed by lighting (The Electric Menace), and the guy killed by bees. If you are afraid of terrorism (a phrase mind-bending to type), you are a fucking fool. And idiot. Deal with it.

Islam is a massive religion, just like Christianity. There are many denominations, and, just like Christians, they all believe different things, but still identify with the umbrella term "Muslim". A protestant will rage against sexual abuse in the Catholic church, but if you tell him "Christians are all molesters", he's going to be pissed at you. Why? Because you just fucking stereotyped him with a patently false statement. Why? Either you're a fucking moron, or you are just trolling him. If you told him, "I think the traditional patriarchal hierarchy of the Catholic church is a system that has been used time and again to shield its members from prosecution for abuses, irrespective of the faith of the parishoners" Well, then you would have identified the actual problem, and you wouldn't be pissing off anyone but die-hard adherants to the specific dogmatic aspects of the system that is the actual source of the problem.

The sects of Islam that breed terrorism are the Muslim equivalent of Westborough Baptist. They're small, but they make a lot of noise. They're slaves to the ideology of one or two fucking insane cult leaders. Does the Muslim world love America with their whole hearts, the way everyone in the world should? No, because the helping heaping of freedom we've served up in their jurisdictions has been in the form of propped up dictators and bombs. But, the vast, overwhelming majority of them are not fucking idiots like you (you're special). They recognize that they'll never wipe us out, and we'll never wipe them out, without wiping everyone out. The west doesn't totally hate us, they're not bad people. They've just been misinformed and fed a lot of anti-muslim propaganda. They don't have any neophyte illusions of prostletyzing the west. They just want to believe that there's a higher order in the universe, and that there is some form of divine justice out there. They put their hands in their face when they see some asshole on TV training "god's army".

When Juan revieled that he is afraid of Muslims, he revieled that he has a foolish bias, based on media spin and propaganda. That, or he revieled that he's a giant tool, and he's just SAYING he has that bias to fit in with O'Reilly. As somebody entrenched in the very system that is manufacturing those biases, he should have known better. Don't eat the same shit we spoon out to our viewers, it's fucking filthy. Don't buy the faulty product we're shilling, it's useless. Don't actually practice the ideology we preach, that would make you a fool. If you do, you're banned from networks that portend to have intelligent commentators.

If only Juan had quietly fellated O'Reilly's nutsack on camera, none of this would have happened.

Is Juan a Latino? He looks kinda Asian to me.

...give him his job back (if he wants it back). This was nothing more than a civil discussion.

or racism. If you look at it honestly, these kinds of thoughts
are sub-conscious and have been there since childhood.

His mistake was to honestly acknowledge it.

It's all about whether or not you're feeding into the framing of the "war" that we're in. Culture war, terror war, whatever. Let's keep fear alive! Fear those Negroes! Fear those Muslims! Fear teh Gays! What a crock.

A little Lao:

46
When a country is in harmony with the Tao,
the factories make trucks and tractors.
When a country goes counter to the Tao,
warheads are stockpiled outside the cities.

There is no greater illusion than fear,
no greater wrong than preparing to defend yourself,
no greater misfortune than having an enemy.

Whoever can see through all fear
will always be safe.

congratulations on what you did, but I submit most people don't have the inclination
nor fortitude to do it. Call them lazy or what have you,
but it's besides the point.

You have to deal with people the way they are, not what you want them to be.

Don't let the door hit you in the ass. Now he can go completely to the dark side and not have to worry about drawing two paychecks.

What a complete buffoon. He never belonged on a rational network anyway...just like the rest of the idiots at the propaganda network.

O'Reilly's claim that, "Muslims killed us on 9/11" in the context of his objection to building the mis-named "Ground Zero Mosque" is the Western bigot's equivalent to a claim intrinsic to the Middle Eastern mindset that says, "Christian Churches are not allowed in our country because Christians killed us in The Crusades." A bigotry, btw, that has been vilified on Faux News Channel many times by their Republican RightWing pundits and guests if not their "news" anchors.

Faux News Channel being what it is and Bill O'Reilly being what he is, they embarked on a days-long, perhaps weeks-long rehabilitation of O'Reilly's bigotry, working to turn his bigotry into something, hmm, rather understandable, even acceptable.

Juan Williams merely got caught up in that rehabilitation effort and was bamboozled into essentially validating it with his own bigotted statement on the assumption that everyone in America, including his employers at NPR, were moving toward an understanding and acceptance of O'Reilly's bigotry.

He was wrong.

Juan Williams claims he's "not a bigot", but it only applies to the fact that he is black and may not be bigoted towards caucasians. Apparently, with his reaction toward people in Muslim garb, he has a visceral reaction. And that indicates a repressed bigotry that built up from years of listening to boneheads like O'Rielly who spew anti-Muslim hate every day. Anyone who is within 10 feet of him or the idiot tube tuned to FOX suffers the same prejudices.

Thanks, NPR for firing Williams. He was one of the reasons I stopped supporting NPR during the Bush era because they failed to keep an even balance of conservative and progressive news and comment. Maybe if they get rid a of few more of their right-leaning staff and executive board, I might start contributing again.

After hearing this, I decided to renew my NPR membership after letting it lapse for several years. I'm hoping this indicates a new direction there.

I am an athiest- I have ZERO respect for religion. Christianity promotes self hatred, homophobia and ignorance, and Islam does much of the same. I'm gay, and am less than human in the Muslim world. Right wing Christians would likly spit on me, but Muslims in Iran or Iraq would probrolly murder me. if I traveled to a middle eastern country with my boyfriend- i'd probrolly be killed. Islam is a death cult. Women are seen as inferiors, Christianity may have a very violent past, but in the here and now, Islam seems to be the only one blowing up buildings, and beheading people for entertainment. It is not deserving of respect.
Religion is evil. (That includes islam)

What i don't get are liberals who are athiests like me, who are only too glad to point out the many evils of Christianity- yet unlike me, are shameless apolgists for Islam, demanding people not critisize that ghastly death cult in any way.

When Muslims treat women and gays as equals, then they might earn my respect-and don't tell me people need to 'respect' their homophobic and anti-women beleifs.

when helen thomas was terminated for her comments about jews and israel, this blog was filled with righteous indignation

cant have it both ways

“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 a priests or nun in religious garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Catholic clergy, I get worried that a child is about to be molested. I get nervous.”

Tell me FOX News ... would that be over the line? Or would you immediately reward him with a $2 million contract?

Helen Thomas got fired for saying less about Israel.

Was it right for NPR to fire Juan for that one comment? Probably not, - I think he should have apologized.
but I don't think it was a firing offense. And frankly I don't think he was fired for that one statement, I suspect NPR brass has long been at odds with William's role in a blatant propaganda network, and how it has complicated their own desire to be seen as impartial.