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Sarah Palin and Fox News Declare War on NPR

Your First Amendment abusers and confuses Sarah Palin and Fox News are declaring war on NPR for firing Juan Williams over his breach of journalistic standards during a Fox News appearance in which he said being on a plane with Muslims made him nervous.

On O’Reilly’s Monday evening show, Juan was on to discuss Bill’s “The View” walkout debacle, during which O’Reilly expressed that, “Muslims killed us on 9-11.” He brought Juan Williams on to help defend his remarks.

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Here’s the video courtesy of Think Progress to William’s original comments:

O’Reilly :Where am I going wrong here, Juan?



Williams: I think you’re right. I think, look, political correctness can lead to some kind of paralysis where you don’t address reality…I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous….. The war with Muslims, America’s war is just beginning, first drop of blood. I don’t think there’s any way to get away from these facts.

NPR announced that they were firing Juan Williams over his comments Wednesday night because he had breached journalistic standards wherein NPR journalists are not allowed to make remarks that would alter the appearance of their neutrality.

Naturally this got Sarah Palin up in arms, ready to blame the President because she can’t resist any chance to show America what a sore loser she is. Here she is in all her tweet-happy glory:

“Juan Williams: Going Rogue. NPR should receive NO fed tax dollars if it operates as intolerant, private radio. Mr. President, what say you”

“NPR defends 1st Amendment Right, but will fire u if u exercise it. Juan Williams: u got taste of Left’s hypocrisy,they screwed up firing you”

Palin seems to think that fact-based journalism is the “left”. I’ll take that if she’s handing it out, as that would make lie-based hyperbole the “right”. Good of her to admit this.

“Going rogue” is the new hip thing on the Right. Breakin’ all those rules of society and standards of behavior, not givin’ a hoot whether what you say is factually correct or not – just go ROGUE! I fear Palin must have slept through her journalism classes, how else to explain her utter failure to comprehend the meaning of a fact versus the concept of punditry?

You know she was just itchin’ to kill NPR and since this occurred during their fund raising week, she is taking this to Defcon Four Screech and Whine. She’s tweetin’ furiously and surely will regale a Palin-exhausted nation with her failure to comprehend the First Amendment on her home of Orwellian Double Speak any moment now.

O’Reilly is having Juan on at 8PM tonight, so expect some poutrage about freedom of speech since you know, we should all be free to violate our contracts with our employers by expressing our bigotry on a national cable station and not be fired. Go rogue, Juan! I hear it pays big time!

NPR’s letter of explanation regarding the firing:

“First, a critical distinction has been lost in this debate. NPR News analysts have a distinctive role and set of responsibilities. This is a very different role than that of a commentator or columnist. News analysts may not take personal public positions on controversial issues; doing so undermines their credibility as analysts, and that’s what’s happened in this situation. As you all well know, we offer views of all kinds on your air every day, but those views are expressed by those we interview – not our reporters and analysts.

Second, this isn’t the first time we have had serious concerns about some of Juan’s public comments. Despite many conversations and warnings over the years, Juan has continued to violate this principal.

(Previously Williams had described first lady Michelle Obama as having a “Stokely Carmichael in a designer dress thing going.” In the 1960s, Carmicheal was a black activist who coined the phrase “Black Power.”)

Third, these specific comments (and others made in the past), are inconsistent with NPR’s ethics code, which applies to all journalists (including contracted analysts): “In appearing on TV or other media . . . NPR journalists should not express views they would not air in their role as an NPR journalist. They should not participate in shows . . . that encourage punditry and speculation rather than fact-based analysis.” More fundamentally, “In appearing on TV or other media including electronic Web-based forums, NPR journalists should not express views they would not air in their role as an NPR journalist. Unfortunately, Juan’s comments on Fox violated our standards as well as our values and offended many in doing so…”

Unlike Fox News and Sarah Palin, NPR has strict standards for its journalists. They are not pundits. This is clearly confusing to Palin who thinks that Juan’s First Amendment rights were violated by his firing. This only makes sense when you realize that First Amendment rights to Sarah Palin and many conservatives translate to their right to say anything no matter how untrue (Death Panels) and not be called out on it by the press, while simultaneously whining and hiding out from the press when the press dares to do its job. Give her a break, Palin also thought the Pledge of Allegiance was the constitution a while back (post bid for VP).

The fact that Sarah Palin and Fox are declaring jihad on NPR, and by extension, all liberals because facts are synonymous with liberal now and the President for good measure, because why miss a chance to be sore losers, should not be surprising. Fox News hires demagogues who don’t have standards and do not care one whit about the facts.

This all ended perfectly because Fox News hired Juan to an expanded role with the network in a multi-year deal. Money talks when your ethics and standards don’t. Ailes said, “Juan has been a staunch defender of liberal viewpoints since his tenure began at Fox News in 1997. He’s an honest man whose freedom of speech is protected by Fox News on a daily basis.”

Yes, indeed. He can say anything he pleases at Fox. No one will stop him when he expresses bigotry over facts. This is, in fact, required at Fox where they are amassing quite the collection of ethics violators. Juan the “liberal” will surely be a great addition to the Fox lineup. And much adored by them for his worth as proof that the main stream media (of which, in reality, Fox is a much larger participant than NPR) sucks.

Prepare to be assaulted all week long about NPR, as Sarah Palin and Fox News try to ACORN them to get their measly federal funding pulled. This is not an isolated incident. Fox News goes after anyone who dares to question their partisan muckraking and surely a fact-based institution like NPR serves to highlight their continuous assault on reality.

UPDATE 1: It seems that in the “Year of the Conservative Woman” Sarah Palin, Michelle Malkin and the Fox Team have been vigorously defending a man whom Raw Story reports this morning “apologized for “wrong” and “inappropriate” comments about women staffers after a 1991 investigation by The Washington Post….The investigation of Williams’ conduct stemmed from multiple occasions on which he made sexually-themed comments to female employees. An article published about the incidents was vague about what comments Williams actually made, though it makes clear that the sexually-oriented remarks came up on numerous occasions — and that his behavior had allegedly gone on for several years.”

Yup. Mean old NPR interfering in Juan’s freedom to be utterly inappropriate. This is just another example of the Right crying “wolf!” and turning out to be wrong. Shoot first. Facts don’t matter. One wonders when Americans will catch on that they do this consistently.

Imagine if they did this with a foreign leader that we had poor relations with. Someone with nuclear weapons. Reactionary, knee-jerk umbrage is not indicative of a good leader or a purposeful movement.

Update 2: Senator Jim DeMint has just tweeted:” I’ll introduce legislation to end taxpayer funding for NPR & PBS.”

Here we go. Buckle up.