Juan Williams still doesn’t get it, is rich anyway
Fox gives the former NPR analyst, who still refuses to acknowledge any prejudice, a multimillion-dollar new deal
By Alex PareeneTopics: Fox News, NPR, 9/11, Islam, Media Criticism, Religion, Juan Williams, War Room, Politics News
FILE- This undated photo released by SeniorNet shows NPR news analyst Juan Williams. NPR News says that it has terminated the contract of Williams after remarks he made about Muslims on The O'Reilly Factor. (AP Photo/SeniorNet, File) NO SALES (Credit: AP)The firing of Juan Williams (and his subsequent full-time hiring — at an insane $2 million — by Fox News) for saying he is afraid of Muslims (and adding that it is OK and right to be afraid of Muslims) is the perfect sort of overwrought nonevent for our obsessively navel-gazing media-political establishment. Old bores of the traditional media love a tale of one of their own saying something stupid and getting fired for it (it is usually outrageous when this happens unless the stupid thing said was about the Jews). The right wing immediately goes into a tizzy whenever anyone, anywhere, can be spun into sounding like some sort of victim of liberal political correctness. (As an added bonus, conservatives now get to launch an ACORN-style campaign against “government-funded” NPR.) The news is of no interest to anyone in the world outside this sphere, beyond the segment of NPR’s 20 million listeners who liked Williams so much that they called in today, weeping. (Which, truth be told, is probably a decent number of people — folks who love public radio think of the people on it like family, in my experience.)
The good reason to fire Juan Williams is that he’s predictable and boring and his appearances on Fox reflect poorly on NPR. This, for all I know, was the actual reason he was fired. But this is a very bad way to explain that firing:
A “news analyst” can’t express “views?” Oy.
But Williams still can’t acknowledge the essential bigotry of his statements. This, from Williams’ defensive, deeply stupid column on his firing, is telling (emphasis mine):
Two days later, Ellen Weiss, my boss at NPR called to say I had crossed the line, essentially accusing me of bigotry. She took the admission of my visceral fear of people dressed in Muslim garb at the airport as evidence that I am a bigot. She said there are people who wear Muslim garb to work at NPR and they are offended by my comments.
That is really the perfect explanation for what was wrong with Williams’ remarks, and it seems like the point at which an empathetic person might actually apologize. But Williams does not reflect on that, at all. Maybe he doesn’t believe it’s true. Maybe he thinks those people are somehow wrong to be offended. He’s deluded enough, after all, to consider his firing for saying something stupid “a chilling assault on free speech” — demonstrating a Palin-esque reading of the First Amendment that should embarrass the author of a biography of Thurgood Marshall. Maybe Juan Williams actually thinks being afraid of a religious or ethnic group solely because of the way they look or dress isn’t bigoted (he keeps insisting as much!), in which case, NPR is justified in firing him — as CNN was in firing Rick Sanchez — for reasons of stupidity.
But because he is a useful pawn in the war on the Liberal Media and their relentless politically correct Muslim-Coddling, he is now one of the best-compensated pretend liberal news analysts in the nation.
Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon and is the author of "The Rude Guide to Mitt." Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene More Alex Pareene.
Related Stories
More Related Stories
-
Arkansas treasurer charged with extortion
-
Corporate greed is poisoning America -- literally
-
The new geography of poverty
-
Barack Obama: Incidental black man?
-
Obama to all-male university graduates: Be the best husband to "your boyfriend or partner"
-
Big Soda SNAP-ing up billions off government programs
-
The truth in Kanye's anti-prison rap
-
Tea Party Patriots push nationwide anti-IRS rallies
-
GOP attorney general candidate tried to force women to report miscarriages to police
-
Marijuana opponents' new plan: Kill First Amendment
-
Poll shows Bachmann trailing in 2014 reelection race
-
White House lawyer reportedly knew of IRS findings in April
-
There's hope for progressivism yet
-
McConnell: Obamacare will dominate 2014 midterms
-
Georgian police slow to react to mob violence at gay rights march
-
Xenophobia only benefits the 1 percent
-
Three scandals, Beltway style
-
Meet GOP's fringy new star, E. W. Jackson
-
Peggy Noonan hears a dog whistle
-
Report: Obama to make big speech about drones, Guantanamo
-
Paul Krugman's right: Austerity kills
Featured Slide Shows
The week in 10 pics
close X- Share on Twitter
- Share on Facebook
- Thumbnails
- Fullscreen
- 1 of 11
- Previous
- Next
-
Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
Credit: AP/LM Otero -
Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
Credit: AP/Matt Rourke -
A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher -
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
Credit: AP/Molly Riley -
Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite -
Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster -
O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid -
Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield -
When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin -
A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin -
Recent Slide Shows
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
Mobile Entertainment: 9 Amazing Drive-In Movie Theaters Still Standing
-
The week in 10 pics
-
- Share on Twitter
- Share on Facebook
- Thumbnails
- Fullscreen
- 1 of 11
- Previous
- Next
-
The week in 10 pics
-
Mobile Entertainment: 9 Amazing Drive-In Movie Theaters Still Standing
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
Netflix's April Fools' Day categories
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
Slideshow: Nerd Obama
Related Videos
Most Read
-
Revenge, ego and the corruption of Wikipedia
Andrew Leonard
-
Obstruction will ruin GOP
Jonathan Bernstein
-
We're living in an Ayn Rand economy
Paul Buchheit, AlterNet
-
Jaron Lanier: The Internet destroyed the middle class
Scott Timberg
-
"Jodorowsky's Dune": The sci-fi classic that never was
Andrew O'Hehir
-
Will you marry me -- once you're done peeing?
Tracy Clark-Flory
-
Temple Grandin on DSM-5: "Sounds like diagnosis by committee"
Temple Grandin and Richard Panek
-
My open relationship went awry
David Farley
-
The man behind Abercrombie & Fitch
Benoit Denizet-Lewis
-
How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government
Michael Lind
Popular on Reddit
links from salon.com

366 points367 points368 points | 362 comments
From Around the Web
Presented by Scribol
-
CAPTION CONTEST: What Were JT And Obama Looking At? -
Michele Bachmann Faces Tight Race Months Out -
Elliott Negin: Unreliable Sources 4: How the Media Help the Kochs and ExxonMobil Spread Climate Disinformation - Paromita Shah: Expanding Domestic Violence Deportation Grounds Does No Favors to Survivors
-
Feds Say Trespassing Peace Activists Are A National Security Threat
-
Watch What Happens When Andy Cohen Raises Money For Democrats -
Human Rights Advocates Warn Obama On Day Of Burmese President's Visit -
Ronald Reagan Made A Movie With James Dean This One Time - 7 Juicy Claims From A Romney Campaign Insider's New Book
- The 10 Most Anti-Gay Statements From The Republican Nominee For Lt. Governor Of Virginia


Comments
57 Comments