Free Republic

The Rev. Jesse Jackson on Wednesday compared NPR’s firing of Juan Williams to the Agriculture Department’s firing of Shirley Sherrod. “NPR was wrong because they did not afford him freedom of speech,” Jackson said. “They did it in a way that was unfair. The context was he was arguing with Bill O’Reilly, saying why he should not be so virulently anti-Muslim … It reminded me so much of the case with Shirley Sherrod. They jumped so quick.” The sacking of Williams last week has primarily drawn criticism from the right. As one of the nation’s most prominent African Americans, Jackson’s...

In the last week the following incidents have occurred; 1. Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar left the set of The View in protest over Bill O’Reilly’s comment that “Muslims killed us on 9/11″ 2. The NAACP released a report on ‘Tea Party Racism“ 3. Juan Williams was fired from NPR for admitting to getting nervous if he were to see a man on a plane in “Muslim garb”. What do these events all have in common? Liberal orthodoxy and deeply ingrained liberal stereotyping. The left has pushed the meme that anyone that disagrees with them is racist. The liberal belief...

I appeared on a public radio program, "On Point," this week with National Public Radio ombudsman Alicia Shepard and listened to her defend NPR's firing of Juan Williams. NPR, the listener is invited to conclude, has no bias, but Williams, a liberal with occasionally heterodox views, is too conservative for NPR. Shepard was in an impossible position and seemed to know it. Right out of the box, she acknowledged that the "manner" of Williams' firing -- a phone call with no face-to-face discussion permitted -- was wrong. The actual termination, she went on to assert, was completely justified. It wasn't...

By now most have heard about NPR’s unceremonious firing of news analyst Juan Williams. What was Juan’s mistake? Honesty. Mr. Williams, though committed to liberal ideology, is an honest liberal who believes that diversity of thought and open discussion is paramount in political dialogue. The lesson that Williams, and others on the left should take from NPR’s heavy hand is that it is the Agenda, and not the process, that is sacred. The mantra from the left is open mindedness, it is free speech, it is a non-judgmental inclusion of ideas and open discussion. The mantra, however, is far from...

The French philosopher, François Marie Arouet (1694–1778), better known as “Voltaire,” is reported to have said: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” When in High School, I learned it as this: “I do not agree with a word you say, but I shall defend to the death your right to say it.” No matter the exact wording, it is a profound statement and one that has stuck with me, as you might expect, throughout my life. Last week when NPR “canned” Juan Williams, it sprang forward into the...

Full story in two parts: Part 1Part 2...“when you say ‘Muslims did this, do you mean Muhammed Ali?’” No, he means “Muslims” those “Muslims” the ones who did it. But what of Muhammed Ali? To my knowledge he never hurt anyone (outside of the ring) but the fact is that due to his association with the Nation of Islam, when Malcolm X was murdered Muhammed Ali did, in fact, state that anyone who comes against the prophet deserves death. Likewise, due to his involvement with Islam, Cat Stevens aka Yusuf Islam supported the attempts to murder Salman Rushdie for writing,...

For years, conservatives have railed against the left wing nonsense that comes out of National Public Radio. For years, staunch defenders of the network have argued that NPR is the ONLY source of universal viewpoints, and deserves taxpayer dollars. I was always leery of the argument. Today, I am totally outraged.

A Conservative friend wise about human nature and politics summarizes his views this way: "Liberals don't think they have any politics. They think they are in a state of nature. Only those who disagree with them are unnatural." It's a brilliant insight, and tells you all you need to know about the culture and political wars in America today. Less than two years after the arc of history seemed to favor them, the high priests of liberal orthodoxy are on the run. They have overreached, and now they must pay. But they are not going quietly or with decency. They...

A little background on Vivian Schiller, the president and CEO of NPR who distinguished herself by (and later apologized for) suggesting Juan Williams’s comments made him practically certifiable. In 1983, she graduated from Cornell University with a bachelor’s degree in Russian and Soviet Studies. Two years later, she emerged from Middlebury College with a master’s degree in Russian. Schiller began her journalistic career in 1988 as a Russian interpreter in the former Soviet Union for Turner Broadcasting. She spent ten years with Turner as vice president of development, producing many award-winning documentaries, such as Hank Aaron: Chasing the Dream. From...

Whatever happened to Ed Schultz's solidarity with the working man? Isn't that supposed to be the essence of Ed's shtick? But on his MSNBC show this evening, Ed played the paid-for-by-management Pinkerton guard, busting his nightstick over the head of . . . Juan Williams. Proclaimed anti-worker Ed: "when you fire somebody: it's over, move on. Don't go back over spilled milk." Ed Schultz, tool of the bosses--who knew? View video here.

NEW YORK (AP) — NPR's chief executive says she's sorry for how analyst Juan Williams' dismissal was handled — but she's not sorry for firing him. Vivian Schiller sent an apology to NPR staff members Sunday night. She says Williams deserved a face-to-face meeting to hear that his contract as an analyst was being terminated over remarks he made on Fox News Channel

Vivian Schiller, the NPR CEO who has gotten criticism from all sides about NPR’s decision to fire Juan Williams, apologized to her colleagues Sunday evening for the way the firing was handled. Among the most problematic aspects of the firing was the NPR’s initial statement suggesting that Williams's statements on “The O’Reilly Factor” were to blame. Schiller later said that Williams had long been in hot water at NPR, and the recent statements were simply the last straw, but the timing of his firing undermined this argument. In her latest statement, Schiller acknowledges that “reasonable people can disagree about timing”...

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) appeared on the Ed Schultz show and said Juan Williams is ‘Un-American’ and people like him contribute to ‘profiling and harassing Americans’ for his comments last week on Muslim airline passengers. Schultz agreed and said the Congressman’s comments were ‘right on the mark’. Williams responded to his firing by saying NPR was looking for a reason to get rid of him, and jumped all over the comments to do so.

All of the controversy surrounding reporter Juan Williams’ inexcusable firing from NPR reminds me of an experience I had with the network a few years ago. An NPR reporter was doing a story on what provokes people to switch from voting for candidates in the political party of their parents to voting for candidates in a different party. I submitted something to the station via email. They were interested, so they sent a reporter to my home with her digital recording equipment. We sat at the dining room table as I explained how I had not abandoned the political party...

Six months after the fact, the head of National Public Radio apologized Wednesday for what some lawmakers called a "slanderous" report linking anthrax-laced letters to a Christian conservative organization. "We have made mistakes at NPR. One mistake was our report about TVC," said Kevin Klose, president and CEO of the public broadcasting radio network, referring to a story that suggested the Traditional Values Coalition was connected to the attempted assassination of two senators. "You have my personal apology for that mistake and I hope to go on from there," Klose said. Klose's comments in a Wednesday House subcommittee hearing came...

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia and other Republicans have called for stripping NPR of federal funding after it fired analyst Juan Williams last week over comments he made about Muslims. But while Republican National Chairman Michael Steele disagreed with NPR's decision, he said Sunday he wasn't sure the issue should be made a campaign issue nine days before the election. “I don’t know if it’s a legitimate part of the campaign. I think what NPR did was overreaching,” Steele said during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Andrew Sullivan on Friday said that if you say something bigoted on Fox News, you get rewarded, promoted, and celebrated. As the topic of NPR's firing of Juan Williams was raised on the syndicated program "The Chris Matthews Show," Sullivan was far more critical of the cable news station than the radio network. Unfortunately, host Chris Matthews opted not to play some of the bigoted statements made over the years by other NPR personalities that have gone totally unpunished thereby making Sullivan's point totally absurd.

Why is Bill Clinton a better politician than Barack Obama? In a word, triangulation. Bill Clinton was always seeking opportunities to emphasize his political independence from Democrats and liberals, particularly on cultural issues. After all, Clinton was the man that brought “Sister Souljah moment” into the political lexicon. Since getting elected, Obama and his administration seem to have reflexively expressed the doctrinaire liberal position more often than not. But in a center-right country, where an increasingly small number of the electorate identifies as liberal, that doesn’t get you very far. Case in point, the Juan Williams firing. Talk about low...

When asked by reporters, immediately after she had insinuated that Juan Williams was in need of psychiatric help-presumably because since 9.11 he sometimes feel anxious around muslims who appear dangerous, the President of NPR Vivian Schiller stated: "The only thing that matters to me in this case is how Juan as a news analyst conducts himself, and whether it's in violation of our journalistic ethics. It's really that straight forward. Now I don't need to get into a debate about is this show news, is this show opinion. That's... Let's... Let somebody else talk about that. My only interest here......