Juan Williams defends himself today after having been fired from his job at NPR yesterday for violating their editorial policy in an appearance on The O’Reilly Factor. He says his firing has a chilling effect on free speech. I think what he really means is that his firing has a chilling effect on getting in bed with dogs. Free speech isn’t a right to be a pundit on right-wing cable news. It’s the right to say what you want without censorship from the government. The government didn’t prosecute Juan Williams, and they didn’t suppress the video record of his appearance on Fox News. Ostensibly, Juan Williams was fired because he said things on The O’Reilly Factor that he is not allowed to say on NPR. But, a brief review of the full transcript shows that, on the whole, Juan Williams was trying to be a voice of reason. He was fired because, ultimately, you can’t reason with Bill O’Reilly, and trying to make the effort leads you to concede points that aren’t properly conceded.
I think NPR should just make it their policy that none of their contractors or employees can appear on Fox News since doing so is catastrophic to their credibility. There is no advantage in picking and choosing when someone has crossed the line. I mean, last year, Juan Williams compared Michelle Obama to Stokely Carmichael. That was such an incendiary and baseless charge that NPR could have fired him then without much of a firestorm.
