Rahmbo headed back to Chicago early. ObamaBob's gone. The economic team that managed to run both the deficit and unemployment rate to dizzying heights is headed back to academia, where they will be lionized for their 'vision'.
And the fink who fired Juan Williams over the phone has just resigned. Her boss will be forgoing her bonus.
It's dawned upon the NPR board that their homeboyz in the past Congress never managed to pass a 2011 budget. And that there's a whole new bunch of people in Congress, many of whom NPR managed to alienate last year, now in charge of the checkbook.
A sacrificial lamb becomes necessary at such a moment.
Bye-bye, Ellen! Let's see if this has a sobering effect on those she leaves behind.
From Fox News:
The NPR executive who sparked a public outrcy in October by firing journalist Juan Williams is resigning from her job, the organization announced Thursday.
Ellen Weiss resigned as senior vice president for news on the same day that NPR's board of directors completed its independent review of the dismissal of Williams. The directors recommended new internal procedures for personnel decisions and disciplinary action.
The board expressed confidence in CEO Vivian Schiller's leadership but voted to forgo her 2010 bonus because of "concern over her role in the termination process." Schiller drew criticism in November for saying Williams should keep his feelings about Muslims between him and "his psychiatrist or publicist" -- comments that she later apologized for.
Williams, who is a Fox News contributor, cheered the announcement.
Let us hope the January trickle becomes the 2011 Stampede of Leftists, beating it out of town while they can, seeking shelter where they may. And, may shelter be difficult to locate. If you feed them, they just hide out and plot their return to power.
Showing posts with label Juan Williams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Juan Williams. Show all posts
Friday, January 7, 2011
Sunday, October 24, 2010
The High Price Of Candor: Juan Williams And Katherine Birbalsingh
It's been a tough couple of weeks for people who suffer from the vice of speaking candidly in public.
First, the lovely young Katherine Birbalsingh, an Oxford-educated teacher who had devoted her career to teaching kids in the forgotten neighborhoods of the the UK, was shown the door after speaking her mind candidly at the Conservative Party congress.
(If you haven't had the pleasure of hearing her brief address, this would be the time to invest about eight minutes of your time. Well worth every second.)
Of course, her sacking was accompanied by the usual British couching of inexcusable behaviour in the most civil-sounding of verbiage. But, for all their attempts to sound plausible and professional, her superiors at St. Michael and All Angels School come off sounding, well, like a bunch of petty academics in search of a scalp. And hers was an obvious choice.
Her crime? Candor, and an elegant and piercing command of the English language, employed for eight memorable minutes in a public forum, where she stated the obvious about the decayed conditions of state-funded education in the UK. Had she instead addressed the Tories and informed them they were the most unimaginable heartless scum who cared not a fig for the poor children whose families could not afford Eton, she would have returned to her school, and been hoisted upon the shoulders of her cheering colleagues for a victory lap around the halls. Too late she found out that academic freedom is only for the Left.
Juan Williams was not even afforded the faux civility shown Miss Birbalsingh. His boss fired him over the phone, with no opportunity to even discuss the situation, and then publicly dissed him and his opinions, saying that they should be between him and his pyschiatrist, or publicist, or whatever. OS heard the recorded comment, and the disdain and condescension were overt. Too late he found that freedom of speech is only for the Left.
Locally, poor Roy Herron, Democrat candidate for Congress in the Eighth District of Tennessee, was screwed royally by his ostensible allies. When it dawned on him that most people would not vote for him because they knew his first vote as a Congressman would likely be to return Nancy Pelosi to the Speaker's chair, he let it be known that he would oppose MizNancy's return to power. For his candor, the money allocated by the Democrats for his TV ads was summarily pulled. Too late, he found that freedom of conscience, and sensitivity to voters' sensibilities, is something for which the Left has no patience.
Roy is a good, honorable gentleman with whom OS disagrees, and for whom he could not bring himself to vote. OS was hoping he would run for governor, but 'twas not to be.
None of these folks were mean-spirited, or racist, or dishonest. They simply spoke words into the open air that they meant, and stated the obvious in the process: Schools are failing, sometimes climbing onto a plane with people who may be religious extremists is unnverving, Nancy Pelosi is a real liability to this country as speaker. The Sword of Damocles descended anyway. Luckily, all three will land on their feet, and blessedly we haven't heard the last from them.
And, I hear the reader say it already: Bubbah, you're bloggin' under a nom de plume! What-choo doin' blathering about candor?
OS admits to his cowardice, but he had to make a decision to protect his family. It is a matter of physical safety. Don't ask, 'cuz OS won't tell, and if you think you know, you're mistaken. Besides, ya'll, this is a hobby, and always will be. OS can't imagine people parting with their hard-earned money for the privilege of reading his scribble. Puh-leeze!
And, there are many things he won't write about, 'cuz he already knows the high price of complete candor. He hopes, while he has to be discreet, that he has helped add a bit of humor, a bit of insight, and a bit of dignity to the public discussion.
And he hopes he'll make it a safer world for candor, one fine day.
First, the lovely young Katherine Birbalsingh, an Oxford-educated teacher who had devoted her career to teaching kids in the forgotten neighborhoods of the the UK, was shown the door after speaking her mind candidly at the Conservative Party congress.
(If you haven't had the pleasure of hearing her brief address, this would be the time to invest about eight minutes of your time. Well worth every second.)
Of course, her sacking was accompanied by the usual British couching of inexcusable behaviour in the most civil-sounding of verbiage. But, for all their attempts to sound plausible and professional, her superiors at St. Michael and All Angels School come off sounding, well, like a bunch of petty academics in search of a scalp. And hers was an obvious choice.
Her crime? Candor, and an elegant and piercing command of the English language, employed for eight memorable minutes in a public forum, where she stated the obvious about the decayed conditions of state-funded education in the UK. Had she instead addressed the Tories and informed them they were the most unimaginable heartless scum who cared not a fig for the poor children whose families could not afford Eton, she would have returned to her school, and been hoisted upon the shoulders of her cheering colleagues for a victory lap around the halls. Too late she found out that academic freedom is only for the Left.
Juan Williams was not even afforded the faux civility shown Miss Birbalsingh. His boss fired him over the phone, with no opportunity to even discuss the situation, and then publicly dissed him and his opinions, saying that they should be between him and his pyschiatrist, or publicist, or whatever. OS heard the recorded comment, and the disdain and condescension were overt. Too late he found that freedom of speech is only for the Left.
Locally, poor Roy Herron, Democrat candidate for Congress in the Eighth District of Tennessee, was screwed royally by his ostensible allies. When it dawned on him that most people would not vote for him because they knew his first vote as a Congressman would likely be to return Nancy Pelosi to the Speaker's chair, he let it be known that he would oppose MizNancy's return to power. For his candor, the money allocated by the Democrats for his TV ads was summarily pulled. Too late, he found that freedom of conscience, and sensitivity to voters' sensibilities, is something for which the Left has no patience.
Roy is a good, honorable gentleman with whom OS disagrees, and for whom he could not bring himself to vote. OS was hoping he would run for governor, but 'twas not to be.
None of these folks were mean-spirited, or racist, or dishonest. They simply spoke words into the open air that they meant, and stated the obvious in the process: Schools are failing, sometimes climbing onto a plane with people who may be religious extremists is unnverving, Nancy Pelosi is a real liability to this country as speaker. The Sword of Damocles descended anyway. Luckily, all three will land on their feet, and blessedly we haven't heard the last from them.
And, I hear the reader say it already: Bubbah, you're bloggin' under a nom de plume! What-choo doin' blathering about candor?
OS admits to his cowardice, but he had to make a decision to protect his family. It is a matter of physical safety. Don't ask, 'cuz OS won't tell, and if you think you know, you're mistaken. Besides, ya'll, this is a hobby, and always will be. OS can't imagine people parting with their hard-earned money for the privilege of reading his scribble. Puh-leeze!
And, there are many things he won't write about, 'cuz he already knows the high price of complete candor. He hopes, while he has to be discreet, that he has helped add a bit of humor, a bit of insight, and a bit of dignity to the public discussion.
And he hopes he'll make it a safer world for candor, one fine day.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
All Things Considered, Unless It's An Opinion We Don't Like: The Juan Williams Firing
But isn't that what they were paying him to do? It appears to OS that the champions of All Things Obama were unhappy with Mr. Williams for daring to appear on The Network That Dare Not Speak Its Name anyway. Remember the first few months of Himself's administration, when they studiously pretended Fox News didn't exist.
They found that approach, well, didn't work.
But NPR's brass likely never forgave Mr. Williams for being realistic, and for exhibiting an entreprenurial tendency to enjoy making money at what he does well, in the private sector. Some sins are unforgivable.
So, his comments on O'Reilly gave them the pretext they needed to vote him off the island.
They are (hold yer' breath, ever'body, 'cuz theeeze iz inflammmmmatory wordz!):
"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," Williams told host Bill O'Reilly during a discussion on the dilemma between fighting jihadists and fears about average Muslims.
"But when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they're identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous," Williams said.
Williams also commented on remarks by Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad warning Americans that the fight is coming to the U.S.
"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," Williams said.
Hell-bells, Mr. Williams! OS gets nervous about that too! Matter of fact, he was at Heathrow that strange day in August 2006 when the plot was foiled to put a bomber on a plane to America with the explosive hidden in a bottle of baby formula. The plane OS and one of his kids was on was one of the targets, it appears. OS spent the hours waiting, knowing something was terribly rotten in Denmark, and deliberately steering himself and the kid away from the many women dressed in full purdah, away from the nervous crowds, and towards emergency exit doors that appeared to head out to the tarmac. If the crowd began to panic, OS figured it would be better to be alive and under arrest with lots of 'splainin-to-do-Lucy than dead or 'splainin to Mrs. OS why our child had died.
OS gets nervous and avoids people who wear the Confederate flag as a shirt, or large tattoo. Or stupid Christian religious slogans. Or anything that indicates that they have some agenda to impose upon the rest of us.
That's not bigotry--that's a healthy sense of self-preservation, ya'll!
But, the good new is: NPR gets some tax money, yes, but they get a heapin' helpin' of their operating revenue from the local affiliates, who depend upon small donors to fund their operations.
Don't take a genius to figure this one out. After the local affiliate went to 'All-Obama-All-The-Time' and quit broadcasting classical music, OS's checkbook shut tight. Nothing sez you gotta' give these people money, or even honor your pledge to them. They sure as hell haven't honored their pledge to you! Check and make sure they're not sucking at the public teat via the state or local budget.
Take their money away, and they go away.
Go git' em, Mr. Williams! Speak yoh' mind! Illegitimi non carborundum!
They found that approach, well, didn't work.
But NPR's brass likely never forgave Mr. Williams for being realistic, and for exhibiting an entreprenurial tendency to enjoy making money at what he does well, in the private sector. Some sins are unforgivable.
So, his comments on O'Reilly gave them the pretext they needed to vote him off the island.
They are (hold yer' breath, ever'body, 'cuz theeeze iz inflammmmmatory wordz!):
"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," Williams told host Bill O'Reilly during a discussion on the dilemma between fighting jihadists and fears about average Muslims.
"But when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they're identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous," Williams said.
Williams also commented on remarks by Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad warning Americans that the fight is coming to the U.S.
"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," Williams said.
Hell-bells, Mr. Williams! OS gets nervous about that too! Matter of fact, he was at Heathrow that strange day in August 2006 when the plot was foiled to put a bomber on a plane to America with the explosive hidden in a bottle of baby formula. The plane OS and one of his kids was on was one of the targets, it appears. OS spent the hours waiting, knowing something was terribly rotten in Denmark, and deliberately steering himself and the kid away from the many women dressed in full purdah, away from the nervous crowds, and towards emergency exit doors that appeared to head out to the tarmac. If the crowd began to panic, OS figured it would be better to be alive and under arrest with lots of 'splainin-to-do-Lucy than dead or 'splainin to Mrs. OS why our child had died.
OS gets nervous and avoids people who wear the Confederate flag as a shirt, or large tattoo. Or stupid Christian religious slogans. Or anything that indicates that they have some agenda to impose upon the rest of us.
That's not bigotry--that's a healthy sense of self-preservation, ya'll!
But, the good new is: NPR gets some tax money, yes, but they get a heapin' helpin' of their operating revenue from the local affiliates, who depend upon small donors to fund their operations.
Don't take a genius to figure this one out. After the local affiliate went to 'All-Obama-All-The-Time' and quit broadcasting classical music, OS's checkbook shut tight. Nothing sez you gotta' give these people money, or even honor your pledge to them. They sure as hell haven't honored their pledge to you! Check and make sure they're not sucking at the public teat via the state or local budget.
Take their money away, and they go away.
Go git' em, Mr. Williams! Speak yoh' mind! Illegitimi non carborundum!
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