Comments re: Juan Williams & NPR's Intolerant Liberals

What follows are parts or all of comments on the thread of Juan Williams & NPR's Intolerant Liberals.

Readers' comments are in italics; my responses are in plain.

Anon @ 4:19 - - -

When Williams or Liasson were on Brit Hume's Fox News program as part of the “All-stars,” I would suffer through their typical liberal spin so I could hear what Hume or Krauthammer had to say.

Over the years, there have been a few times Williams surprised me by making a little sense but not enough to change by view of him as a typical NPR lib.

If he is actually going to separate himself from the liberal mantra (ie start thinking for himself, start making sense) he should leave NPR for his own sake. He loses credibility with many of us just by the association.

While I often disagree with them, I’m glad Williams and Liasson are frequent members of the All-Stars panel. I like to hear civil people side-by-side express differing political views.

You’re right that among many of us who are – independents, conservatives, center-right – the NPR tag is a downer and with good reason.

Tarheel Hawkeye - - -

. . . I have an acquaintance who claims to be a hard-core Kansas Republican, but he just delights in listening to NPR and the BBC overseas broadcasts--he's an education snob and thinks anything aired by a university is above reproach . . .

I meet many just like you’re describing. I wonder if any of them ever consider what the reaction of many at Duke to a wildly improbable hoax tale about a gang rape and then a transparent frame-up attempt that played out for almost a year suggests about the dross which emanates frequently from many campuses.

Does anyone recall a few years ago when several Northeastern NPR broadcasters were furnishing their donor lists to the Democrat party? I haven't forgotten.

I'd forgotten until you mentioned it. If a reader digs that story out and sends me links, I’ll post on it.

Anon @ 8:24 - - -

If we get a new fairness doctrine, can we please start with NPR. There is no balance there at all. How about a federally mandated limit on liberal speech on NATIONAL PUBLIC Radio, broadcast over the people's airwaves.

Do you realize if NPR couldn’t broadcast liberal speech, there’d be very little sound coming from its 850 or so affiliates?

Ken @ 2:37 - - -

The left will never be satisfied until everyone who disagrees with the party line is silenced. Williams, like Lieberman is very irritating in the echo chamber because he doesn't say the same thing as every other lefty.

A defining characteristic of the Left today in America is its intolerance for opposing opinions and free speech. The speech codes which infest so many campuses are one example of the Left’s intolerance. The Harvard CAS faculty's treatment of Larry Summers is another.

NPR is seen as a propaganda outlet that cannot be sullied by less than true believers. It is the "Vatican Radio" of the church of JFK. . . .

It’s more like the church of Sen. Ted Kennedy and Revs. Al Sharpton and Bill Moyers.

Williams' analysis of Michelle Obama is the equivalent of questioning the saints. It is just not done.

Amen.

Anon @ 9:51 - -

Juan Williams' real crime is probably writing the book "Enough." In this book, he takes some African-American leaders to task for trying to overplay the victim card. . . .

Do Williams' detractors really, really want the "Fairness Doctrine" to return? He is one of the few commentators or NPR who seems to have an open mind.

I expect most of “Williams' detractors really, really want the ‘Fairness Doctrine’ to return.” I’d guess though that they wouldn’t want it to apply to NPR which so many libs and leftists consider “centrist.”

cks - - -

Long before Williams was a radio and television pundit, he was a reporter for the Washington Post (early eighties). While many of his articles were infused with leftist-liberal political thinking, he occasionally produced articles and columns which ran contrary to the leftist mantra - the letters that would appear in the Post criticizing him when that happened were often quite vitriolic.

It was only gradually that he began to appear on radio (and then later television). If memory serves correctly, he first appeared as part of the weekly panel on NPR’s Diane Rehm show (where he was in many instances the voice of the right - which tell you about how “unbiased” that particular program was and still is).

Although I find that the times that I agree with Juan Williams are few and far between, I do enjoy listening to the give and take that he provides on the Fox All Stars section of Fox’s nightly news.

Thank you, cks, for the background information.

And thanks to all of you who commented in response to the post.

Subsequently, a few readers have commented concerning Williams and/or NPR on other post threads.

I plan to respond to those comments here on the main page tomorrow.

John