What Juan Williams said was dumb, but understandable. What NPR did in reaction was even dumber and harder to understand.
Like most Americans, Juan Williams knows that it’s both irrational and unfair to blame the world’s billion-plus Muslims for the violent acts of the violent Islamist fringe. But he’s hardly the only one for whom the sight of people in Muslim garb boarding a plane might trigger subconscious fears and associations with the Sept. 11 terrorists.
Giving voice to such unfiltered emotions was a mistake, but it doesn’t make Williams a bigot and shouldn’t by itself be a firing offense. NPR’s overreaction has handed its government-hating detractors a chance to slap the PC label on the network, which in reality is the nation’s most robust marketplace of ideas.
In any case, this is supposed to be a free country, and our national public radio should champion free expression, period. Besides, there’s a better way for NPR to punish Williams: assign him to do a series of stories on how some conservative groups (including his other employer, Fox News) deliberately inflame anti-Muslim sentiment in America.
This article is cross posted at Politico – The Arena