NPR Gives Juan Williams The Sharia Shaft

National Palestine Radio, er, I mean National Public Radio has fired longtime correspondent Juan Williams for remarks he made about Muslims during an interview with Bill O'Reilly earlier this week.

Williams said, "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 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."

Now one need not wear "Muslim garb" or be Middle Eastern in appearance to be a Muslim. But anyone who says they don't get nervous seeing someone who is wearing Muslim garb on an airplane is lying through their teeth.

Just ask the people who flew Northwest Airlines Flight 253 last Christmas.

But Williams also quoted Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square Bomber who was sentenced to life in prison earlier this month. Williams stated, "He said the war with Muslims, America’s war is just beginning, first drop of blood. I don’t think there’s any way to get away from these facts."

Juan Williams got fired for telling the truth.

Juan Williams also got fired because of his association with Fox News. Not only do Cliff May and Jonah Goldberg of National Review Online say so but so does NPR itself.

Bill Kristol summed it up succinctly, "NPR--unfair, unbalanced...and afraid."

Many years ago WBUR, the NPR affiliate in Boston, did an interview with me about my conservative poetry. But I haven't got much use for NPR and now I have even less for them now.