Juan Williams' steepest descent to Fox News
I found this article from the NYTimes on Peter Daou’s Twitter stream. It’s about the fallout from Juan Williams’ firing:
Of the thousands of complaints that have saturated NPR in the wake of Juan Williams’s firing earlier this week, some of the most telling have been from callers describing themselves as long-time “viewers” of NPR who warn that they are going to “stop watching.”
Stop laughing. It’s rude.
But wait! There’s more:
In an interview on Friday, Vivian Schiller, NPR’s chief executive, defended the decision to dismiss Mr. Williams and said it was not the product of political or financial pressures.
His contract was terminated, she said, because “he had several times in the past violated our news code of ethics with things that he had said on other people’s air.”
On one such occasion last year, Mr. Williams said on Fox that Michelle Obama has “got this ‘Stokely Carmichael in a designer dress’ thing going,” an allusion to a leader of the black power movement of the 1960s.
In each instance, Ms. Schiller said, “We called him on it, we had a discussion, we asked him not to do it again.” NPR’s ethics code states that journalists “should not express views” in other outlets, like TV shows, that “they would not air in their role as an NPR journalist.”
People deserve second chances, Ms. Schiller said, but “we made the decision here because, at a certain point, if someone keeps not following your guidance, you have to make a break. And that’s what we did.”
By the way, Juan Williams filled in for Bill O’Reilly on Friday. So, it’s too late to take him back even if NPR wanted to. But why would they want to?:
Jennifer Houlihan, a spokeswoman for New York Public Radio, said the issue “was not hurting” pledges. “We’re hitting or surpassing our goal at this point,” she said.
Oo! Oo! Fire Mara next time. I’ll double the donation I used to give. Better yet, stop being sycophantic Obama toelickers and I might even start watching listening again. Yeah! Purge the whole organization of Obots. Concentrate on reporting the news like you used to do when you didn’t kiss conservative or “creative class” ass.
Do something different, like, oh, I don’t know, how about journalism?
More on Mara: Eric Boehlert says he never said NPR should fire Mara Liasson and neither has Media Matters. Boehlert says that NPR should address the Code of Ethics conflict that Mara has with Fox. I agree.
Of course, I think Mara has already done significant damage to NPR’s brand and getting rid of her would be only one step in a long painful road to recovery. It has to take on the Obots in its ranks too before I come back. But, Ok, give her a warning and a choice: stay off of Fox if you want to make absolutely sure you don’t violate NPRs code of ethics or find another job. Seems fair to me. I would have fired her by now but maybe all she really needs is a 6 months performance plan and a hard ass editor with a big red sharpie. She might even leave on her own.
Filed under: General | Tagged: Fox News, Juan Williams, NPR, Vivian Schiller |
The Confluence 
MO’s arms are more buffed than Stokely’s were.
Michelle has upper arms I can only dream about. I could be skinny all over and still look like one of my Scandanavian ancestors storing lipids in my arms for a long, hard winter.
Some people have all the luck.
She got really lucky by marrying Obama.
I guess. Depends on how you look at it. I think he got lucky by marrying her.
I’m sure they deserve each other.
Is “sychophantic” a combination of “psychotic” and sycophantic?
Cuz psychophantic describes a lot of Obama supporters.
Spelling, schmelling. I’m a chemist, Jim, not an English major.
Spelling Nazi here–what my English students used to call me–likes “psychophantic” and believes it to be a valuable addition to the language.
Concur.
Do you remember this?
The reason I ask is because diversity programming was already the new normal when I was a kid. My classes were integrated when I started school. Girls could wear pants and didn’t have to take home ec if they didn’t want to.
That’s why the accusations of racism feel so totally weird to me. My experience is more similar to my daughter’s generation than to many older baby boomers.
Yes, that is Morgan Freeman.
When they first played the race card on the Big Dawg I laughed at the absurdity of the accusation. I was shocked that some people claimed to take it seriously.
It was such a dirty low-down blow that I could never support or vote for the people behind it.
What did Goebbels say about The Big Lie?
I dunno, my German ain’t that good.
Ass Press:
Nobody predicted that.
This is what is most disappointing about NPR. They’ve become just like the others; practicing stenojournalism. They say the same things the others do, they are just nicer and more polite. Argh.
I have listened to talk radio NPR my entire adult life, and it is so hard to break the habit. I stopped during the election but gradually let it creep back in. Now I’m creeped out again!
Really? I must have a non addictive personality. (Ok, I have a little problem with hypergraphia).
It was easier than i thought to break the DailyKos and NPR habits. When I’m on vacation, I even manage to go whole days without internet. It can be done! I suspect a solid week would completely do the trick. I might even read a book or clean my house.
I used to frequent DailyKos in the early days, but was put off early by something I couldn’t put my finger on. Must’ve never found Goldfinger! As to NPR, maybe it’s because it reminds me of being a kid, as my mom always had it on in the evening, or maybe just that I’ve been the only adult in my household for a long time — so they become my conversation partners. The Confluence is a daily addiction since forever it seems….
Vacations without internet aren’t hard for me, but I do prefer TC to cleaning house!
>>I do prefer TC to cleaning house!
Yeah, me too. It’s a problem.
All in your attitude. Your 10 million hits here are far more important in the scheme of things than a freshly vacuumed rug!
I like freshly vacuumed rugs. If anyone knows of a good, cheap cleaning lady who is in the country legally and pays her taxes, let me know.
I broke with Daily Kos in 2004 when they decided to switch support to Dean (from Clark) and then turn on Clark – using the same tone they used on Hillary in 2004. NPR I listened a little – it was more WNYC I was dependent on. I even went once and volunteered to make calls for them.
Dress up as any of the people on this website and scare Juan Williams on Hallowen:
http://muslimswearingthings.tumblr.com/
Please ask Spammy nicely to let me go. M-word in a link.
Hey, that’s a great site! Very effective.
Love it!
{{snort!}} I love the Muslim lifeguard in the burkini. Too funny.
My favorites are the race-car driver and the guitar player.
Pretty kewl.
The only thing I still listen to on NPR is Car Talk.
I don’t even listen to This American Life on WNYC anymore. It’s strictly podcast for me now.
Will Shortz puzzle on Sunday mornings at 10:43.
“Of the thousands of complaints that have saturated NPR in the wake of Juan Williams’s firing earlier this week, some of the most telling have been from callers describing themselves as long-time “viewers” of NPR who warn that they are going to “stop watching.””
Riverdaughter, having been reading this blog for about 30 minutes now, I’m not sure I understand why you would put so much in store with this statement.
Based on how you feel you have been treated, dismissed, disparaged, disrespected, ignored, slimed by Democrats and the Obama campaign and Administration, why would you take this statement from NPR at face value?
IIRC, you have others at this very blog telling you that they are progressive, liberal, (ex-pat) Democrats and that they are angry with Williams’ dismissal. And yet the official spin from the NYTimes and NPR is to ignore these people, and cast them all as conservative Limbaugh listeners.
” Fire Mara next time.”
How will firing Mara yield anything close to what I think you are otherwise demanding of Democrats or NPR?
I hear arguments that Fox is biased rightwing media. And that NPR is not biased leftwing media. And yet, often times the people that would claim NPR is not biased leftwing media get very upset with the Maras and Juans and Cokies.
So is NPR supposed to be “ours” as a counterpoint to Fox and O’Reilly?
I’m just not sure what us progressives are asking for.
Yglesias would seem to think the firing over this speech was bogus, but he’s okay with this act since he wanted Williams gone along time ago. Greenwald would seem to think the firing over this speech was bogus, except he’s okay with it because he wants bogus double standard firings to either be gone or applied evenly across the board, and he doesn’t think they will go away.
I think the firing over this speech was bogus and it, along with Vivian Schiller’s insinuation that Williams is mentally ill strikes me as near identical to 2008, when you and me and others were called racists for not whole heartedly backing Obama and then drummed out of proper Democratic company and shunned.
There is nothing to cheer on when injustice occurs, especially when it is done by folks we would like to think our putatively on our side.
Excuse me?? I have never liked Juan Williams. I think Schiller’s statements as to why Juan Williams was fired are entirely consistent with NPR’s code. If you say something on another channel, it has to be consistent with what you would say on NPR. Otherwise, how would you know which statements were true?
I identify with the liberal side of the spectrum but that doesn’t mean that I want my news to be left. In fact, I find lefty news stations just as hard to listen to as conservative ones. I want news that reveals the truth. Don’t you?
There was no injustice in Williams’ firing. He was trying to have it both ways. He was trying to appeal to an ultra conservative audience on Fox and he was trying to portray himself as an objective journalist on NPR. Which is it?
I have to tell you right now that I have absolutely no respect for Fox news or the blatant propaganda it spews. Juan Williams never was a good fit at NPR, which *used* to pride itself as being journalism with some integrity. If it didn’t appeal to conservatives, too fricking bad. Sometimes, the truth doesn’t always conform to your worldview.
There is nothing unjust about firing Williams. He was warned to comply with the code of ethics for the station. he didn’t. Whether or not you like Schiller’s statement or consider it to be true, it’s the only one that makes sense as far as I’m concerned and the one most likely to survive a legal argument. NPR put it off for too long as far as I’m concerned. Williams has now shown his true colors. He’s $2 million richer. Good for him.
I’m not validating anyone’s discomfort with Muslims. If you have a problem with Muslims, then you need to straighten it out ASAP. Don’t do it here. You won’t get sympathy from me. And I don’t care what they called me in 2008. I know I’m not a racist and I don’t have to prove it to anyone. Bullies throw words like that around.
Finally, I don’t like emotional manipulation. So, don’t do it.
1. I never called you a racist. What are you talking about?
2. How can you say you don’t want your news to be left, that you want disparate views, and then be upset with Juan Williams’ presence at NPR?
3. How was what Williams said at NPR inconsistent with what he said at Fox?
4. IIRC, His title at NPR was of Senior News Analyst, just like Dan Schorr (who I absolutely treasured.) Just like Dan Schorr, that’s not a position of objective journalist. That’s a position of news analysis which includes a healthy dose of experience/research based speculation and opinion.
5. How does $2M make his firing any more justified? When a victim of some crime or oppression or unfair policy or harassment or firing wins a court case for punitive damages, does that make the original offense more justified?
6. Why do you say I have a problem with Muslims? How on earth did you get that from what I wrote?
7. You don’t like emotional manipulation? Why would you write I called you a racist and then go on to claim I have a problem with Muslims?
8 “He was trying to appeal to an ultra conservative audience on Fox and he was trying to portray himself as an objective journalist on NPR. Which is it?”
If what you are saying is that by “trying to appeal to an ultra conservative audience” that he would take on two different points of view, or skew his message, I don’t believe that’s accurate — I don’t believe that’s what he would say he was doing. If you can provide statements of what he said on NPR that is in conflict with what he said at Fox then please do so (citation-needed.jpg)
I don’t see any conflict between his job as senior news analyst on NPR, and his appearing on Fox to have a conversation on a panel in which he provides news analysis.
I’m kinda tired after the Giants-Philly series and there’s hardly anyone else here.
Why don’t you come back tomorrow or Monday?
I’m sure there will be lots of people wanting to play “whack-a-troll.”
As myiq says, I don’t have time for this nonsense. But OK, I’ll take on your twisting of the facts.
1.) You said: “I think the firing over this speech was bogus and it, along with Vivian Schiller’s insinuation that Williams is mentally ill strikes me as near identical to 2008, when you and me and others were called racists for not whole heartedly backing Obama”
Juan Williams has attacked NPR in some very strange ways in the last couple of days and probably through whacked out emails and telephone calls to Vivian. We’ve gotten crap like that from Charles Lemos and Garyinchapelhill when we had disagreements with them that lead to them leaving TC. I too questioned their sanity.
I never said you called me a racist. I said I don’t have to defend myself against such attacks. I know I am not. I have enough self confidence to live with being unpopular for not going along with the crowd when the crowd is clearly wrong.
2.) I can hardly bear to listen to Terry Gross anymore, I don’t tune into Keith Olbermann and some lefty journalists set my teeth on edge by their constant yammering about genetically modified foods, nuclear energy, abstention from all wars even you are attacked first in a spectacular way, and the pharmaceutical industry as an evil entity who kills people with poison for profit. I hate that shit. It’s just as kneejerk and uninformed as some idiot Fox news jerk telling his audience that Muslims are going to go all jihad on them and kill them in their beds. The reason I don’t like Juan Williams is because he was brought into NPR to “spin” the news. If you had been a long time listener of NPR, you would have recognized the difference immediately. NPR started going after Democrats very aggressively and was significantly softer on conservatives. There were fewer followup questions. Juan was particularly good at nuanced language that made movement conservatism seem less batshit crazy than it was. It reminds me now of the shardsoglass commercials. Sure shards of glass is going to kill you but the language is spun in such a way as to make the product seem less dangerous than it really is. Mara Liasson was just as bad.
3.)Would Juan Williams agree that muslims going jihad are this nation’s greatest threat on NPR? No, for two reasons. 1.) NPR management and listeners wouldn’t like it or agree with it. 2.) As I have said before, Juan is more subtle than that.
NPR wanted Juan to be consistent so listeners would not be confused about the validity of the news he reported on NPR. That is why it is so important for reporters to keep their personal opinions to themselves. It would be like Bill O’Reilly saying he didn’t really have a problem with Muslims. He only says that because it brings in more terrified little old ladies to boost his ratings. Fox wouldn’t like it. And that’s why Fox is reacting to Williams’ firing from NPR. As Greenwald says, it delegitimizes the narrative they’ve been building for awhile that muslims are going to kill us all in our beds. Fox can’t have anyone doubting that scenario, so it is pulling out all of the stops. Who are you going to believe? Fox or some rinky dink public radio operation?
4.) I had no problem with Dan Schorr. He was what he was. And that’s why NPR kept him on for so long. He didn’t say one thing on NPR and then turn around and say something else to the Washington Post. NPR’s policy was designed to reinforce consistency. If you have your reporters saying one thing on one channel and another thing on the radio, what are you going to believe? Why do you have such a problem with this concept? It seems very straightforward to me. In fact, we all sign something like this when we enter into an employment contract. We promise not to undermine the people who pay us money. I’m sure my employers wouldn’t like it if I praised the company one minute and then said they really were trying to poison people for profit and was very specific about the ways they were going to do it just because some of my readers are lefties who have a irrational hatred of pharma and don’t know the first thing about it but I need to please them to keep them coming back. First of all, it wouldn’t be true. But more than that, it would damage the business in an unfair way. (Quite different from whistleblowing when a product is dangerous and the public needs to be protected. The whistleblower should get protection for that. But that’s not what is going on with Williams.) The things that Willams said in agreement with O’Reilly are very hard to fight because they provoke an emotional response in the viewers. Willams could have potentially damaged NPR’s reputation for journalistic integrity for supposedly reporting the news in an unbiased fashion on NPR but agreeing with something completely different on Fox. That is what their code was designed to protect. He violated it. He was fired. Very simple.
5.) I don’t see any injustice here. He can say any damn thing he wants. NPR just asked him to be consistent with his opinions so there would be no question to the listeners as to where he was coming from. He didn’t do this. As it happens, he landed on his feet making a gob of money for saying any damn thing he wants. How is he being oppressed exactly? He was aware of NPRs ethics code before this incident. He was warned about his conduct before. It was not necessarily what he said that got him into trouble. It was that what he said was not consistent with what he would say on NPR. Again, this is a distinction that seems to elude you.
6.) You are correct. I inferred that you had a problem with Muslims. That’s because I have heard from a lot of TC readers in the past couple of days who think it is OK for a publicly perceived “legitimate” news analyst like Juan Williams to admit he has irrational fear of muslims and to agree with a blow hard demagogue like O’Reilly that this is Ok. You sound to me like you are in that category though you were careful not to say it. And verily I say to you that I don’t buy that argument from you or not you. If anyone reading TC thinks it is OK to have an irrational fear of muslims, the will not find any sympathy here from me. I am not here to validate a person’s irrational fear of muslims, no matter how it got into that person’s brain. I expect people to grow up and overcome it. if this applies to you, then my message was to you. If it does not, then you are free to ignore it.
7.) I’m not even going to answer this because I already have. Nice try.
8.) If you are a legitimate news person with a reputation you value, you don’t go on Fox on a regular basis. Fox is not a legitimate news organization. It is a right wing propaganda machine focussed almost exclusively on using psychological manipulation to induce fear in its viewers. If you had a mother who was an obsessive Fox watcher, you would know exactly what I am talking about. I am constantly deprogramming her from believing the most illogical nonsensical lies and distortions regarding every issue in the news today and she gets it all from Fox.
I’m not providing examples. If you’re interested, you can go look them up. People have been complaining about Juan Williams, Mara Liasson and Steve Inskeep for years. Examples are myriad.
As for you not seeing any Williams’ conflict of interest, well, I guess that’s why Myiq called you a troll. There’s no point in arguing with you. If you don’t get it by now, you never will or you’re here to stir up trouble.
You are advised to go elsewhere to do that. We don’t have to give you a platform for your delusions.
I don’t know what a TC is. I don’t think I came here from there. I clicked on a myiq comment somewhere.
Regarding your update, I do think Eric Boehlert is being completely disingenuous to act shocked and outraged that Fox and others think he is calling for Liasson’s firing.
“So why does NPR continue an association that harms its reputation and runs counter to its own code of ethics? ”
Regarding your telling me to go away, no problem, you got it. I’m not sure you’re as interesting a person to converse with as you think you are.
So goodbye, peace out and all of that.
TC is an abbreviation for this blog’s name — The Confluence.
As for this:
Juan was pandering to O’Reilly. He wouldn’t have said what he said on O’Reillys about Muslims on NPR. Now he’s locked into saying he gets nervous when he sees people in Muslim garb, which I’m not even convinced is such a huge ever present fear for Juan in the first place. I think he was just pandering.
It is a conflict of interests. One role is supposed to be more straight journalism and the other is yakking it up with O’Reilly, who likes to be intentionally provocative.
Yeah, yeah, peace and all that crap. Next time, try to come up with a decent pseudonym and legitimate email address. We don’t harrass our readers but we do like to know they are real people and not some cowardly anonymous person.
We ARE NOT progressives – we’re LIBERALS
Juan Williams has guest hosted for O’Reilly for some time now. I’m one of those people who never really listened to NPR anyway. I just think the timing is interesting that George Soros gives a contribution to local NPR stations and Juan is suddenly too Foxed up to be on NPR.
Count me as one of the people who does not see George Soros as a boogieman. Sorry. I’m not going to Emanuel Goldstein the guy. He also gives money to Media Matters, as did I at one point. A lot of lefty organizations went off the rails in 2008. Most of them just wanted to fight back against the extreme right, as Soros does. They hitched their wagon to Obama. He turned out NOT to be their savior. But that doesn’t mean that I object to Soros funding them.
He’s not a monster. He’s just a very rich guy who doesn’t want to see a repeat of the repressive regimes he grew up in.
When Soros starts writing checks to the Tea Party movement, then I’ll worry. Until then, it’s a bandwagon I refuse to jump on.
I don’t understand that. You won’t watch Olbermann’s slanted news, but you’ll donate to Media Matters who Olbermann uses to present his slanted news?
I donated to Media Matters back in 2006 when it was an operation that was just getting off the ground. i did it because I believed in their mission. I had enormous respect for David Brock who overcame his right wing tendencies and apologized for his behavior. I thought Media Matters was doing the right thing by exposing the ways right wing media was manipulating public perception. Wouldn’t you agree that this is a laudable goal? Especially when there was no one taking this task on back then?
Back in 2006, Olbermann wasn’t parking his ass on Media Matters. Before the 2008 primaries, Olbermann was kind of entertaining. It all changed once Obama decided to run.
I understand why the whole Obama phenomenon happened. That doesn’t mean I am making excuses for anyone’s bad behavior. Of all organizations, Media Matters should have been on their guard. I am disappointed with them in many respects. But the Obama orgasm is over now and a lot of people have woken up to the fact that they were sleeping in the wet spot. I hope that Media Matters gets its act together.
George Soros doesn’t bother me at all. George Soros makes Fox News viewers foam at the mouth like a rabid version of Pavlov’s dog. Are you conditioned? If not, then where did your feelings about Soros come from?
Attitudes and prejudices come from a lot of different places. Sometimes, it can be as simple as comments dropped haphazardly into threads. If everyone hates Soros, maybe I should too? Maybe I don’t know all of the facts about Soros and other people more knowledgeable than I do know damaging things about him? Well, i don’t have to look it up. People I respect are saying bad things about him. Isn’t that good enough?
Nobody is perfect. It is very easy to damage a person’s reputation by downplaying their attributes and harping constantly on their blemishes. That’s how we end up with pablum candidates. No one with a real past that they have overcome is willing to step up to the plate and run for office. Who wants their stupid human mistakes broadcast to the world for judgement and censure?
It’s a brave person who admits their mistakes and then decides to take a new path to do something good. Maybe Soros is that kind of guy.
It’s not that Soros is Dr. Evil, but that he funds and creates “nonpolitical” groups whose express purpose is to get Democrats elected and Republicans run out of town.
MoveOn.org started out trying to “move on” from the obsession with the Starr investigation. That’s a one issue campaign, not broadly political. It became a clearinghouse to advocacy for Democrats and running negative campaigns toward Republicans.
Media Matters for America started to fight right wing memes in the media. It has diverted into editing clips or Fox News hosts to make them even crazier or pick on spelling errors.
When the Koch brothers donate to a cause, they give it directly to the Tea Parties. We know what they stand for. Soros gives money for “fairness” then the organizations become laughably unfair. Soros backs Obama and MMFA becomes pro-Obama and MoveOn becomes anti-Clinton.
Oh, and right wing billionaires don’t use funds that creat “nonpolitical” groups whose express purpose is to get Republicans elected and Democrats run out of town? Have you been paying any attention at all to politics and media over the past 30 years?
The reason we are in the mother of all Recessions and are about to lose our Social Security benefits is because the right is rolling in so much money that they can broadcast their idiotic message to the world virtually unchecked. They spend hours researching the best ways to deceive people. My mother is so confused that she has no idea which way is up anymore and she’s a very smart woman. She loves social security and her veterans benefits and free public education and all kinds of liberal stuff but she will vote for a Republican because Glenn Beck and the other Fox News svegalis have figured out how to push her buttons and have her convinced that Obama is a socialist. I don’t even like Obama but I spend hours detangling the knots in her brain that Fox put there to make her think he is one.
Personally, I wish there were a lot more Soros’ out there donating to media watchdogs. His contributions are a drop in the bucket compared to the billions right wingers get from the ultra rich who want to turn us into slaves. From what I understand, Soros gives organizations money and takes a hands off approach to them. I’m betting you don’t get that with the Koch brothers.
Would I be happier if the people Soros funds weren’t drunk on Obama kool-aid? Um, yeah. I would much prefer it if they weren’t adopting right wing tactics to amp up the crazy. I don’t like it when lefties make fun of the people who are caught up in the grip of right wing memes and are too confused to get out of it. There is not enough calm, level headed news and analysis these days. NPR used to be my go to source for news. Not any more.
I wish Soros had put all of his money behind Hillary in 2008. But I don’t think that’s legal and besides, if he had, the DNC might have taken her out anyway. This is the reality that we have to deal with. There’s not enough money on our side for us to grow to the size of Fox but that doesn’t mean that little organizations can’t do a lot with a little money. What they need to do is stick to their values and not let themselves be rolled by people like Obama. But that’s not the world we live in. I only hope that orgs like Media Matters and NPR are starting to come down from the post orgasmic afterglow and are seeing Obama for what he really is.
We can only hope and try to push them in the right direction.
@1539 days:
What’s wrong with electing Democrats, as long as they’re of the genuinely liberal variety? Let me jog your memory here: Bill and Hillary Clinton are Democrats.
And what’s wrong with running Republicans out of town? It’s that or lock them up in the attic; the whole party’s gone batshit crazy. These are the folks, in case you’ve forgotten, who cheated their way into the White House in 2000 and then turned the government over to the megacorps and the fundamentalists. That hasn’t worked out to wel for most of usl.
I am posting this on both active threads.
Nancy Pelosi has produced a video for the “It Gets Better” project.
I like the video. And Nancy did her job getting DADT through the House.
I liked it too… she actually did a really nice job on it and I believed her…
but then her actions preceded her words.
Credibility. It’s not that hard to achieve.
[…] “Juan Williams’ steepest descent on Fox News” and related posts (riverdaughter.wordpress.com) […]
Civil Liberties are hard fought, and when put into a state of FEAR ala George BUSH II, with his, “You are either with us or against US, and yet NO WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION were ever found (thanks to Colin Powell).
Even though we NOW know that there was knowledge of 911 operatives via an FBI informant. Lt. Colonel Anthony Shaffer’s memoir “Operation Dark Heart” was bought and burned by the Pentagon so we wouldn’t know of this information, but I understand WikiLeaks already has a copy so we may some day learn of these events.
Obama, was supposed to be different, he was supposed to be the second coming and yet he is behaving more like BUSH III in keeping the same agenda going.
Did we give up our Freedoms when Timothy McVeigh was the worst terrorist on record!?! Does it make a difference if the terrorist is a Christian or a Muslim? Did Juan Williams cringe when a White Christian with a crew cut sat next to him?
I recall how moved I was after I saw this picture: (click link to view)
I thought it was truly sad that the media took more interest in Julian Assange leaving a CNN interview because he refused to go TABLOID, and the CNN reporter didn’t want to discuss the release of the documents and the thousands of deaths that have resulted because of the WAR (s) and how there still isn’t an exist plan as 1/3 of the military force is still there and more in Afghanistan while the toll in lives lost rises and back home our soldiers are fighting to receive services. These TWO WARS have resulted in the high injuries suffered by our soldiers and our allies, yup those countries that went with us, but whom we don’t talk about in the news…they too have suffered loses.
Have we become less, active in protecting our Civil Liberties in 2010? Have we become complacent about the the LONGEST LASTING WARS in our history? 😦 Juan Williams never asked those hard questions, to Billy O’Reilly.
HELP Spammy got me… 😥