NPR & terrorists — 1; Americans — 0

This
week, in a rare moment of candor, Juan Williams set down his journalist hat and
spoke the truth about his feelings when on a plane with passengers wearing
traditional Muslim garb. Yes, he was on national television. Yes, he was on
conservative Bill O’Reilly’s show — a usual hotbed of fiery rhetoric. But
his words were neither bombastic nor laced with hatred.

 
Williams
was simply relaying a plausible, completely natural reaction when the human
equation mixes American aircraft and a religious movement where its fanatics
view mass death as a justified expression of practicing faith. And he lost his
job over it.
 
Score
one for the terrorists. In its zeal not to offend anyone at all costs — even if
it means the suspension of human behavior in the face of reality — NPR mocked
the often-personal fears of every American and relegated them to a form of
twisted bigotry.
 
Has
one of the most listened-to radio networks forgotten what happened to this
country nine years ago? Does it really expect Americans to return to a state of
normalcy to where the NPR “thought police” can now impart its own form of
justice?
 
What’s
bigoted or even unnatural about a reaction based on actual incidents of terrorism
we hear on NPR news all the time?
 
Quick to its own defense, NPR CEO Vivian Schiller responded that
“our reporters, our hosts and our news analysts should not be
injecting their own views about a controversial issue as part of their story.
They should be reporting the story.” C’mon, was Williams really reporting
anything on O’Reilly? He was acting as an analyst. That role involves editorial
parsing of events. Period. NPR understands that concept, otherwise they
wouldn’t have their own stable of journalists-turned-analysts.

Liberals
and conservatives alike were quick to elevate this kerfuffle into a larger
battle of good-versus-evil over issues such as public financing of NPR or First
Amendment guarantees, but it doesn’t need to go there.
 
Juan
Williams was terminated from his job for thinking like … speaking like … and
simply being an American. There’s something inherently un-American about how
NPR responded.

Armstrong Williams is on Sirius/XM Power 169, 7-8 p.m. and 4-5 a.m., Monday through Friday. Become a fan on Facebook at www.facebook.com/arightside, and follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/arightside.