NPR fires Juan Williams for not being politically correct enough. With an update.

Update: Listening to John Gibson this morning and he mentioned that this is “PLEDGE” week at NPR.  Firing Juan Williams appears to be a calculated decision at NPR in an attempt to raise more funds from the left and its leader, George Soros.

Well Juan, how does it feel to be the one thrown under the bus? How does it feel to no longer be simpatico with your leftist amigos?

NPR is taxpayer funded and yet they have the power to silence – to censor – voices that don’t go along with their leftist ideology. He’s a news analyst,  someone who gets paid to broadcast his opinions.

Now let’s be clear, until I read this quote from Juan:

“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’ve 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.”

I can’t remember a time when I did agree with him. The one time he actually puts words to the feelings that most people have, he gets canned. He’s been fired for saying, finally, what most Americans think and feel by a news organization that is paid for by those same Americans.

We all know how left leaning NPR is. This is not a news flash. But to censor speech because it is contrary to what some higher-ups in that organization believe, that crosses a line. We pay the salaries of those same higher-ups and pay them to make decisions, not to cram their leftist ideology down our throats. How much more arrogance are we going to tolerate from people who are essentially on OUR payroll?  The heavy handedness of this firing due to a statement that is not politically correct enough for the bleeding hearts at NPR is not just cowardly, it’s the height of arrogance.

Which one of us taxpayers gave them a promotion to speech policemen?

Along with getting rid of the Department of Education, the National Endowment for the Arts and privatizing the post office,  we need to call for pulling the plug on NPR and PBS. And firing someone for having an opinion that disagrees with the so-called bosses, is one more good reason for doing so.

In a league of their own

But while some conservatives think O’Keefe and Giles were doing journalists’ jobs, “most news organizations consider such tactics unethical.”

Call the secret ACORN videotapes by Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe what you like, said Howard Kurtz in The Washington Post. Just don’t call it journalism.

(Entire column here.)

I’ll leave the debating up to the “real” journalists as to whether Giles and O’Keefe are “real” journalists: those guys who sat on their hands and did nothing while everyday a new video was released; those guys who tried to turn a blind eye to the ingenious work of 2 kids who blew the top off of arguably the most corrupt organization in the country. Now those “real” journalists are suffering bruised egos and bloodied reputations. If the public didn’t respect them before, their opinions of reporters now are in the dumper.

It’s ludicrous to be denouncing these 2 young people for doing the job that so-called professionals should have been doing all along and worse yet, when the videos started trickling out, they still did nothing. Now they want to jump up and complain that “hey, they aren’t in our league!” With that I have to agree. Indeed, Giles and O’Keefe aren’t in those “professional journalist’s” league. They are in a league of their own, far surpassing anything that the pros are doing or should have been doing.

What those 2 kids did was show deep respect and regard for the First Amendment and shine a spotlight on a far-reaching abuse of power that the “real” press has been desperately trying to ignore. The last thing the press wants to do is make the president look bad and they will protect him even to the tune of billions of tax dollars being thrown in the ACORN treasure chest and worse, the (thankfully hypothetical) trafficking in child sexual abuse and slavery.

So, the press can debate their legitimacy and criticize and demean these 2 young adults but the bulk of the American people owe them a debt of gratitude and a great deal of respect: something the press will continue to be without.

Get over yourself – it’s not the color of your skin that’s scary

There are few things I think more frightening in the American mind than dark skinned black men. Here I am. Mark Lloyd

Read the whole story here.  And do please read it.