Juan Last Word....

Posted by Diogenes Sarcastica
10/25/2010

The recent firing of Juan Williams from NPR differs from other resent incidents of  late. Unlike CNN's resident goofball Rick Sanchez, who was fired for just being stupid, Mr. Williams got the axe for telling the truth. Imagine that.


But with all that has been written, there's one aspect of this whole thing that has not been addressed----the attack on Williams is the first big leftist attack designed to silence a certified liberal.   Juan Williams is one of America's most seasoned, respected, and articulate African-American journalists.  Whether you agree with him or not, and I don't most of the time, he is a spokesman for reasonable, moderate, non-radical liberal viewpoints.

When a conservative is being criticized and, given the left's suspicion toward that side of the political spectrum, many liberals have believed whatever they've been told by often highly partisan and dishonest sources, failing to insist on fair play. Such caution and care is rare nowadays. Up until now, a lot of people have been happy to see those they didn't like being bashed, fairly or otherwise, without asking too many questions. The same standards of accuracy and fairness should be applied to everyone. Then if you hear that someone said or did something outrageous you know that it's true and not just a smear.


But these are precisely the qualities that have declined as much of  mainstream journalism has turned into nothing but spitting, screeching , poop flinging  partisan propaganda outlets rather than places where people struggle for objectivity and accuracy and  truth.  NPR's official statements said that Williams had violated the network's political "line," thus admitting that this tax-supported station is an ideological political organ.


Due to ideology and arrogance, the left-pretending-to-be-liberals may have gone too far. People who have swallowed all of the often-false claims about conservatives, their ideological and political rivals, start to ask questions. Up until now, the majority of moderate liberals have said, in effect, that it didn't matter if "bad" people were treated unfairly.


The only thing worse than a witch hunt is a witch hunt being cynically manipulated to intimidate open discussion, and courageous individuals.


The firing of Juan Williams may help in getting real liberals to realize the extent that their institutions have been taken over by the anti-free speech political correctness of far left, which has used this power to trash professional ethics and transform media institutions into organs of lies and indoctrination. None of them are safe, as intellectuals or as journalist from attack and unemployment, respectively.

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