Juan Williams' Firing, Blow Against Free Speech

Juan Williams

In the world of Washington, D.C., journalism, Juan Williams has never been a conventional brother.

Since the days he took on the corrupt administration of D.C. Mayor-for-life Marion Barry in a series of stinging, award-winning reports in the Washington Post, Williams has been treated with suspicion among his black peers.

He always seemed willing to take on sacred cows within the black community.

Yet Williams wrote movingly about the civil rights struggles of the 1960's in his book "Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965." But then, he worked for U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond, who is no friend of black civil rights thought.

As I said, Williams is one complicated dude.

But the latest flap to involve Williams has nothing to do with his complex relationship with the black community. Instead, it has everything to do with a wave of political correctness that is ruining the public discourse in this country.

In a radio interview this week, Williams, 56, had the audacity to reveal his true feelings about seeing people dressed in Islamic garb on an airplane. In the wake of the 9-11 terrorist attacks, he admitted that seeing those types of people made him a little uneasy.

Williams' candor was rewarded by his firing at National Public Radio (NPR).

This was a bad move by the radio network.

I refuse to believe that Juan Williams is the only person who feels some unease when boarding a plane and seeing someone dressed in Muslim garb. Williams, though, was the only person with the honesty and the forum to reveal his gut feelings.

And for that, Williams was drummed off National Public Radio.

Williams has had to walk a journalistic tightrope, serving as a commentator on both the conservative FOX network and the more progressive NPR. Obviously, he lost his balance.

But NPR has also lost its balance in firing Williams. The reason Williams is interesting to listen to is that he brings unconventional-yet thought-provoking insights to the daily discourse of events.

Williams has said a lot of things over the years I have strongly disagreed with. His defenses of Supreme Court Jurist Clarence Thomas during his confirmation hearing was indefensible and misguided to name just one place where Williams lost his way.

I assure you there were others.

But losing his job for saying the sight of Muslims on a plane makes him a little nervous is wrong. It makes me wonder just how much any commentator, including myself, will have to go to water down his or her comments just to avoid offending someone's sensitivities.