Free Republic

Denver -- There is a powerful, often painful, thread of memory in the American mind with regard to race. It is a flowing narrative from the time of slavery to the Civil War and on to the nation's struggle for racial equality. That story includes Martin Luther King's life and death as a martyr. Today the story continues in a nation where one-third of the population is made up of racial minorities. There is also an unprecedented number of immigrants and record levels of prosperity among the black and Hispanic middle-class. Now we have Barack Obama's astonishing political rise, advancing...

With polls showing the presidential contest between John McCain and Barack Obama getting closer, a question is now looming larger and larger. Is skin color going to be the deciding factor? Just last week, Sen. Obama warned voters that Sen. McCain's campaign will exploit the race issue by telling voters that "he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills." A few weeks earlier, he said they will attack his lack of experience but also added, "And did I mention he's black?" The McCain campaign did not counter the first punch, but after last week's jab --...

Tony Snow and I traveled parallel paths through Washington. We are a year apart in age –Tony is a year younger at 53 –and both loved politics and debate. Our love of debate may have been due to the fact that we both studied philosophy in college (Tony went to Davidson, I went to Haverford). And before joining FOX News we both spent time as editorial writers. ..... We got together when he came to Washington to be the editorial page editor of The Washington Times. I was working as a White House correspondent, editorial writer and columnist for The...

In death, Sen. Jesse Helms is being honored as a conservative hero. My question is why? Yes, the six-term senator defined right-wing political stands against communists in Cuba, Nicaragua and the former Soviet Union. Yes, he blocked international treaties that limited U.S. sovereignty. And, yes, he was masterful in his use of direct mail to stir contributions to conservative causes. But "Senator No" also created an angry, scolding, close-minded face for the modern GOP, exactly opposite to the sunny optimism of Ronald Reagan. Helms did not invite people into the party; to the contrary, he seemed to delight in excluding...

Walter Dean Myers, a best-selling author of books for teenagers, sometimes visits juvenile detention centers in his home state of New Jersey to hold writing workshops and listen for stories about the lives of young Americans. One day, in a juvenile facility near his home in Jersey City, a 15-year-old black boy pulled him aside for a whispered question: Why did he write in "Somewhere in the Darkness" about a boy not meeting his father because the father was in jail? Mr. Myers, a 70-year-old black man, did not answer. He waited. And sure enough, the boy, eyes down, mumbled...

Now what? How does Barack Obama, fresh from claiming the Democratic nomination, put Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Father Michael Pfleger behind him, before they ignite yet again and blow up his general election campaign? How does he pre-empt advertising images, sure to be circulated by his opponents, that link him to outrageous racial rhetoric and fears that he is open to the most radical left-wing ideas – including using the power of the White House to exact racial vengeance? ----snip---- To deal with this controversy effectively, Mr. Obama needs to give another speech. This time he has to admit to...

Hillary Clinton, down to her last straw, is making the case that she is the better candidate to run against the Republicans because, unlike Barack Obama, she can win white Democrats. She is right. But because she is daring to touch the hot button of racial politics, she is being told to shut up or risk being charged with exploiting racial tensions for political advantage. The facts are stubborn, however. Since his phenomenal win with 33% of the white vote in nearly all-white Iowa, Obama has been unable to get a firm grip on white Democrats. He has won a...

Remember how the MSM swooned over Barack Obama's Philly speech on race after the Rev. Wright tapes pushed the story to the front pages? I expected the same kind of rapturous reaction to Obama's press conference of yesterday in which he definitively ditched the conspiracy-mongering minister. But, surprisingly, that was not the case at all on CBS's Early Show this morning. To the contrary, the tone was set by the opening graphic shown here, which skeptically asked: "too little, too late?" And when Bob Schieffer and Juan Williams appeared a bit later, they were similarly cynical. Then again, there was...

Juan Williams gave Barack Obama mixed marks on his speech today, avoiding the kind of swoon some other commentators indulged immediately afterwards. While praising Obama for his nuanced view of racial relations, Williams told Fox News that Obama failed in his primary goal — to take responsibility for having a twenty-year relationship with a man to whom hateful rhetoric appears second nature: VIDEO It’s a little different take than mine earlier, especially in whether Obama made the sale with the superdelegates. However, John Derbyshire at The Corner points out something else that Obama fails to address: ‘If, as Obama seems...

Juan Williams defends Bill O'Reilly against charges of racism in Time Magazine, and angrily calls out O'Reilly's critics for calling him an Uncle Tom. He charges those critics with intellectual dishonesty for pulling one quote out of context to reverse what O'Reilly really said -- and he also accuses CNN for deliberately misreporting the incident in order to eat into O'Reilly's substantial ratings lead over CNN. It's a media meltdown! It started with Bill O'Reilly's grandmother. And it blew up into charges of O'Reilly being called a racist and me being attacked as a "Happy Negro" (read that as a...

Radio Network Wanted To Choose Its Interviewer The White House reached out to National Public Radio over the weekend, offering analyst Juan Williams a presidential interview to mark yesterday's 50th anniversary of school desegregation in Little Rock. But NPR turned down the interview, and Williams's talk with Bush wound up in a very different media venue: Fox News. Williams said yesterday he was "stunned" by NPR's decision. "It makes no sense to me. President Bush has never given an interview in which he focused on race. . . . I was stunned by the decision to turn their backs on...

Juan Williams Says Daily Kos Is In The Political Center By Noel Sheppard | July 22, 2007 - 13:19 ET Sometimes when you see NPR's Juan Williams on Fox News, you are left scratching your head wondering what planet he lives on, and what the color of the sky is there. Such questions must certainly have been raised in the minds of right-thinking "Fox News Sunday" viewers this morning when Williams suggested that the liberal blog Daily Kos "is now center." I kid you not. What precipitated this extraordinary lapse of reason on Williams' part was a rather accurate observation...

LET us now praise the Brown decision. Let us now bury the Brown decision. With yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling ending the use of voluntary schemes to create racial balance among students, it is time to acknowledge that Brown’s time has passed. It is worthy of a send-off with fanfare for setting off the civil rights movement and inspiring social progress for women, gays and the poor. But the decision in Brown v. Board of Education that focused on outlawing segregated schools as unconstitutional is now out of step with American political and social realities. Desegregation does not speak to dropout...

I'd say Bill Kristol nailed it on this morning's Fox News Sunday. And while his comments were directed at Democrats, they're equally applicable to the MSM IMHO, making them NB-worthy. Kristol: "People are being too complacent or forgiving to the Democrats: 'Oh, it's politics; one of them has a non-binding resolution and another one has a cap.' It's all totally irresponsible. It's just unbelievable. The president is sending over a new commander, he's sending over troops, and the Democratic congress, either in a pseudo-binding way or a non-binding way is saying: 'it won't work -- forget it! You troops,...

He's the District's "other" Tony Williams. The one without the bow tie. The one who is not the mayor. The one who is a, um, Republican. Antonio "Tony" Williams has heard the jokes: the cracks about being a D.C. Republican and the observations that he shares a surname with the mayor. "I get tons of jokes," says Mr. Williams, who is running for the Ward 6 seat on the D.C. Council. "Like 'Oh, you're the other Tony Williams,' or 'Oh, what's up, Mr. Mayor?' "

In an eye-opening exchange on The O'Reilly Factor this evening (Monday, October 30, 2006), liberal Fox News analyst Juan Williams agreed with host Bill O'Reilly that CNN "is in the tank for the Democrats." The topic of the segment was Friday's testy exchange between Lynne Cheney and CNN's Wolf Blitzer. O'REILLY: ... But the bigger picture is that Lynne Cheney asserts that CNN, in its election coverage, Juan, is in the tank for the Democrats. You buying that? WILLIAMS: Yeah. I think that's true. O'REILLY: (surprised) Do you really? WILLIAMS: Yeah. I think that they are counter-programming Fox, is what...

WHY NOT JUST go ahead and call me an Uncle Tom and a sellout? Why bother with trying to put a new coat of paint on the same old personal attacks by saying that I am "demeaning black people," that I'm the "black Ann Coulter" and a turncoat against the cause of racial progress for black people in the United States?That's a sampling of the nastiness flying at me since I wrote a book that holds today's civil-rights leaders accountable for serious problems inside black America. I've suggested that many poor people are capable of helping themselves by graduating high...

Juan Williams says enough with the culture of failure that's undermining Black America Faced with some problem or other, one of Margaret Thatcher's colleagues proposed creating a special cabinet department to deal with it. "Good God, no," said the Prime Minister. "Then we'll never get rid of it." That's good advice in any situation. Whatever good it might once have done, America's racial-grievance industry is now principally invested in its own indispensability. Lavishly remunerated panjandrums such as the Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have a far greater interest in maintaining racism than any humdrum Ku Klux Klan kleagle, assuming...

<p>TONY WILLIAMS, the 26-year-old son of NPR correspondent and Fox News contributor Juan Williams, is cut from the same cloth as the older Williams in some ways, but definitely not in others. Father and son both hold heterodox opinions on matters of race, for instance, but the younger Williams is--gasp--a Republican. He even spent a summer working in Strom Thurmond's office. And now the young iconoclast is making a run for office, campaigning for a seat on Washington's city council, where Democrats occupy 11 of the 13 seats.</p>

Enter Juan Williams, a senior correspondent for National Public Radio and a political analyst for Fox News...[it's] his latest book that's creating quite a buzz. Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America - and What We Can Do About It is Williams' diatribe against black "leaders" of the Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton model: the self-serving, race-hustling type. Williams also takes to task reparations advocates, black criminals and rappers who are responsible for the most viciously stereotypical images of black people... ..."Overall, about 35 percent of the city's black population lives in...

by Mark Finkelstein August 24, 2006 - 07:32 Talk about your culture clash! A hip hop music site juxtaposes a report on Bill Cosby's condemnation of that musical genre with news of the latest criminal doings of hip hop stars. AllHipHop.com bills itself as 'The World's Most Dangerous Site.' Currently up on the site is an article reporting a recent speech in which Cosby . . . "went on the offensive against rap music." States the article: "'They put the word 'nigga' in a song, and we get up and dance to it,' Cosby said. "The two-hour Coppin State University-hosted...

Al and Juan are going to debate Juan's new book....

Have we taken our eyes off the prize? The civil rights movement continues, but the struggle today is not so much in the streets as in the home -- and with our children. If systemic racism remains a reality, there is also a far more sinister obstacle facing African American young people today: a culture steeped in bitterness and nihilism, a culture that is a virtual blueprint for failure.... Cosby asked the chilling question: "What good is Brown " and all the victories of the civil rights era if nobody wants them? A generation after those major civil rights victories,...

You can read the whole thing, but this is the part that has me howling:Sharpton took "the Jackson model of black politics to a new low," Juan Williams writes in his new book about "phony black leaders," titled "Enough." Williams' Sharpton indictment centers on his 2004 presidential run when, for some financial aid, the reverend reportedly leased some control of his Democratic campaign to Republican operative Roger Stone. Sharpton's campaign double-dealing - the latest in a career peppered with such treachery - was first reported in the Village Voice and other places. Williams, a Washington broadcast pundit, recirculates the published...

    Racism vs. Cultural Failings? Journalist Sides With Cosby BY Jonathan Tilove    In "Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America -- and What We Can Do About It," longtime journalist Juan Williams argues that Bill Cosby was right in blaming the ills of black America on factors other than racism. (Photo by Michael Temchine) WASHINGTON -- The question of whether racism or cultural failings are more to blame for the crisis in black America has been much debated in recent years. In 2004, Bill Cosby weighed in on the...

NPR and Fox News commentator Juan Williams is a certified liberal — so liberal some have called him the black Alan Colmes, the liberal half of Fox’s Hannity and Colmes. When he writes a book you’d expect the liberal media to fall all over each other to be the first to review his book and have him as a guest on network radio and TV. That hasn’t happened, however, because his book “Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America — and What We Can Do About It,” has crossed the boundary of...

Morning Edition, August 7, 2006 · Many African-American leaders have lost touch with a hallmark of the civil rights movement -- the tradition of self-empowerment, Juan Williams says in his new book. Instead, they've embraced the notion of "victimhood," the NPR senior correspondent says. His book is called Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America -- and What We Can Do About It. "I think it's a terrible signal to our young people about who black people are to have us constantly wrapped in the cloak of victimhood, and to have black...

August 7, 2006 · Many African-American leaders have lost touch with a hallmark of the civil rights movement -- the tradition of self-empowerment, Juan Williams says in his new book. Instead, they've embraced the notion of "victimhood," the NPR senior correspondent says. His book is called Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America -- and What We Can Do About It. "I think it's a terrible signal to our young people about who black people are to have us constantly wrapped in the cloak of victimhood, and to have black leadership that...

NPR and Fox News commentator Juan Williams is a certified liberal – so liberal some have called him the black Alan Colmes, the liberal half of Fox’s Hannity and Colmes. When he writes a book you’d expect the left-wing media to fall all over each other to be the first to review his book and have him as a guest on network radio and TV. That hasn’t happened, however, because his book Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America - and What We Can Do About It, has crossed the boundary of...

NPR and Fox News commentator Juan Williams is a certified liberal – so liberal some have called him the black Alan Colmes, the liberal half of Fox’s Hannity and Colmes. When he writes a book you’d expect the left-wing media to fall all over each other to be the first to review his book and have him as a guest on network radio and TV. That hasn’t happened, however, because his book Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America - and What We Can Do About It, has crossed the boundary of...

Fox News contributor Juan Williams comes out swinging against "phony" black leaders and a black "culture of failure" in his new book "Enough." Williams gave NewsMax his first interview about the book, and he lashed out at leaders like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton who create support by focusing on "victimhood." "That says to an individual, ‘You can't help yourself, you can't help your family, and therefore all you can do is wait for the government to do something for you," said Williams, who is also a senior correspondent for National Public Radio. "I think it is a message of...

Juan Williams: Most U.S. Blacks Thriving How cold has it been on Capitol Hill? Political journalist Juan Williams says it’s been so frigid that "the politicians are still walking around with their hands in their own pockets.” On a more serious note, Williams – senior correspondent for National Public Radio and a Fox News contributor – discussed the "rapid rate of change” in the U.S. in the past few years when he addressed the Forum Club of the Palm Beaches in Florida. Williams cited the Clinton impeachment hearings, two controversial presidential elections, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the wars in Iraq...

anyone watching this evening's show. Krauthammer just took Juan Williams to school

Can we agree?: Shep Smith is preening ignoramus. Smith just concluded an interview of Juan Williams by offering up the following pet theory: "When President Bush nominated Miers, he did so with a big wink and let conservatives know she was 'one of us.' But even though conservatives knew that, they rejected her, because she was not sufficiently in-your-face as a pick, and they wanted to poke liberals in the eye with a nominee." Has Smith been following the debate that has raged in conservative circles over Miers? Is he aware of the serious doubts that arose as to the...

Fox News Sunday panel discussion

It's important that we don't let Dick Durbin off the hook too quickly. And, it's important that we not let his shills and enablers turn the tables by saying Republicans are merely attacking him to switch the subject from our alleged abuse of terrorist POWs. That's basically what Fox News' Juan Williams did when he grudgingly admitted that Durbin's likening of Gitmo to the genocidal Soviet, Cambodian and Nazi regimes was over the top. The decent, though persistently misguided Williams said that Durbin's crude comparison should not detract from his very important point: that America is abusing prisoners in Guantanamo....

Former Massachusetts congressman Robert Drinan, a Jesuit priest who supported legalizing abortion when he served in Congress, still uses the authority of his collar to cheerlead for evil causes. On Easter Sunday, he turned up at various television studios to praise the starvation to death of Terri Schiavo. Drinan was apparently Tim Russert's idea of a sturdy Catholic authority on this matter. Even as Drinan praised the killing of a disabled woman he mused nostalgically about passage of the "Americans with Disabilities Act," a glorious piece of legislation, he said. A host not willing to play the stooge to a...

Juan Williams has long aggravated me. Most of the time he says really insipid things..though occasionally he speaks a kernel of truth. Once he got me soooo mad that I posted a thread titled "Juan Williams is DUMB as a rock"..It garnered a lot of comments..99.9% of whom agreed with me, except for the few who felt I was denigrating rocks. Well, I have to take it all back. Today, on Special Report, Brit Hume interviewed Juan to talk about the President's inititives in reaching out to Blacks. IT is absolutely must-see TV. Thee program will be repeated again late...

Tonight on Special Report, during the panel discussion, Mort and Fred kept lobbing Democratic Creampuffs at Juan. He was deftly returning their offers with the standard DNC company line and doing his usual, predictable, Kool-Aid slurping when Brit began picking at the veneer. Hume first interrupted to ask Juan if he really believed that Dean was best choice for the Democrats DNC job. Surprisingly Juan said the he didn't believe that Dean was good for the Party. A little later as Juan was beginning to defend another DNC talking point Hume again stopped him and asked if Juan rally believed...

Juan Williams was beyond belief tonight on FOX. He started in on the "jobless recovery" and how "hurting" the average guy is out here in America. Fred Barns started bi+(h slapping him and telling him that he ought to try reading a newspaper and get his facts straight. Juan looked totally surprised that he was being called on these talking points and then Krauthammer lit into him and essentially said that he was enjoying the a$$ kicking Fred was administering. I wonder how the hell much they pay Juan to sit there and be a punching bag like that? I...

Hume-Williams rivalry ratchets up on FOX News Sunday Following several weeks of increasingly hostile exchanges between FOX News managing editor and chief Washington correspondent Brit Hume and Nartional Public Radio senior correspondent and FOX News Channel contributor Juan Williams on Fox Broadcasting Company's FOX News Sunday, host Chris Wallace read a viewer email on October 24: WALLACE: And a warm and fuzzy request from Malia Reid of Georgia: "Could you make me feel better and ask Juan and Brit to show the love and hug each other some Sunday? This is just politics, and I would feel better" -- I...

I'm wretching on "America's Black forum". Julian Bond is puking his bile, Armstrong Williams is holding his own; truth is always the victim....

Did Juan Williams even graduate high school? He sounds stupid, uniformed, and spews fictionous garbage. He must be an intern at FOX, I can't imagine any news org paying him for that.

It is totally unfair of Fox news to submit us to listening to Juan Williams twice in one evening. He never says anything different but the Dem talking points. He's on O'Reilly right now.

Man, the guy is a slow learner. Bret had to not so gently "educate" him. What say you all?

Juan: As a journalist, I know that you care deeply about the truth. That is what your work is all about, and your reputation is based on obtaining and reporting the truth. I must say that I was quite surprised that you said on FOX News yesterday that the SwiftVets have been proven to be totally wrong. Maybe we at FreeRepublic can be of some help. At least part of the truth can be very easily determined. If John Kerry fills out a simple goverment form called an SF-180, he can authorize the release of all of his records. I...

Juan Williams of FOX News Sunday and NPR appears to be desperately looking for ways to help John Kerry. He is another one who is in total meltdown as he watches the Kerry campaign crashing. Williams seems to have a big problem with the SwiftVets, the one group who has earned the right to talk about and challenge John Kerry about Vietnam and his traitorous actions afterwards. Williams was over the top this morning. He wants so badly to discredit the SwiftVets because he knows what they have been doing to his candidate and party. While debating with the panel,...

Yet another memo uncovered!

Juan Williams was on Brit Hume's show, trying to drown everyone else out, talking about the suspect memo. He has no argument for the validity of the document other than he wants it to be legitimate. Not only can we not take George W. Bush's word on the matter, at the same time, we are to accept that John F'n's records are supposed to be some sort of holy scripture. To question John F'n is akin to heresy. Now, the talking points from the DNC are that they documents are courtesy of Karl Rove. These people are going insane. Oh,...