Posted on 09/29/2007 8:58:13 AM PDT by jdm
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 lackey or Uncle Tom). ...
So, O'Reilly says to me that the reality to black life is very different from the lowlife behavior glorified by the rappers. He told me he was at a restaurant in Harlem recently and there was no one shouting profanity, no one threatening people. Then he mentioned going to an Anita Baker concert with an audience that was half black, and in sharp contrast to the corrosive images on TV, well dressed and well behaved.
I joked with O'Reilly that for him, a guy from Long Island, a visit to Harlem was like a "foreign trip." That's when he brought up his grandma. He said she was prejudiced against black people because she knew no flesh-and-blood black folks but only the one-dimensional TV coverage of black criminals shooting each other and the rappers and comedians glorifying "gangsta" life and thug cool. He criticized his grandmother as irrational for being afraid of people she really did not know.
Just like Bush's analogy about Nelson Mandela and the Rush Limbaugh controversy, this is another effort to discredit someone by cherry-picking the transcript and stripping something of all context. I don't even care for O'Reilly's show. I never watch it unless Michelle Malkin appears on it. I don't like shoutfests on TV and haven't gone out of my way to watch them in quite some time. That, however, doesn't mean that O'Reilly should be pilloried for supposedly saying something almost completely opposite of what he actually said.
Juan Williams goes into far more detail than I will, but essentially, O'Reilly was arguing against the rappers' defense that they just represent reality in the 'hood. O'Reilly countered that by relating his experience at a Harlem restaurant and an Anita Baker concert. His supposed "surprise" that black people behave normally was a sarcastic commentary on the "reality" that rappers supposedly relate to their audiences.
Media Matters, which has apparently created an entire division of cherry-pickers, dishonestly claimed that O'Reilly was surprised that black people act normally, and the rest of O'Reilly's critics followed. Normally, that would only matter in the blogosphere, but CNN decided to play the same intellectually dishonest game, and they're still playing it.
Last night in the 8 pm ET hour, I watched a segment on CNN where they continued to exploit this story, claiming that O'Reilly wouldn't come on their show and wouldn't apologize for what he said. Well, first off, O'Reilly's show airs live against that time slot, a point which the CNN hosts never mentioned, so he couldn't possibly join them to discuss it. Second, why should he apologize? He didn't say anything wrong, as Williams notes in his column.
Even the other people in the airport were scoffing at this. One younger man sitting next to me said, "Wow, CNN must be getting desperate." Another said, "Isn't there anything else to talk about?" Not on CNN. They and the Left have to play their intellectually dishonest games, and as Williams points out, make it impossible for anyone to have a constructive conversation about race.
Sitting that close to Brit has rubbed off onto Juan over the years.
Indeed it has.
Wonder how long it will take Juan to become a conservative? I cannot imagine any rational decent person wanting to be associated with liberals. Juan, they lie to and about you, leave the dark side. Follow truth.
To be on the political right is the same as being subjected to thousands of killer bees. Every nut job group gets free air time via the MSM to inject their stinger into us. Your buddies on the left have been successful in insuring that the only protected free speech is liberal free speech.
To paraphrase something from your buddy B. Clinton, "put some ice on it"
“Wonder how long it will take Juan to become a conservative?”
In his latest book, about the problems w/ race relations, he’s almost there.
The major point of contention is the Iraq war, where he feels the need to forget that he’s warm because of oil, drives a car that burns oil, etc. Once the war is over, or once the libs are in charge of the war, he’ll change that tune quickly.
I was flipping thru channels the other nite... watched Juan get angry on O’Reilly for the criticism... then tuned to MSNBC and CNN to see them continue this BS (baloney stuff).
The difference, of course, is that O’Reilly had more people watching than the sum total of the other 2 channels, probably by a factor of 2.
Juan William is a decent man. Confused - yes. Misguided - yes. Wrong - usually. But to his credit, he is an honest and sincere person who calls them he sees them.
I think Juan will be coming out of the posit soon.
Probably right FReeper friend. Still, it is nice to see “former” liberals worked over using lies promulgated by their old “friends”.
Not counting the little spankings Brit gave him whenever he needed it. Juan, like Bill Cosby is starting to be a thinker.
“Juan William is a decent man. Confused - yes. Misguided - yes. Wrong - usually. But to his credit, he is an honest and sincere person who calls them he sees them.”
Contrary to what is said here, I’ve met many such libs. Mind you, they are maybe 10% of the liberal camp — mostly simply repeat phrases they don’t understand, under the impression that this is what educated people do — but there are a number of good, honest, kind-hearted libs.
Most of those libs became libs before HHH or McGovern, and are as distrustful of the limousine libs that we see trotted in front of us.
Now don't be too rough on Juan Williams. He's a confirmed liberal, but he has little patience with hypocrisy and dirty tricks... from either side.
He blew the whistle on his left-wing friends who tried to dig up dirt on Clarence Thomas during the confirmation hearings 16 years ago.
I've always respected him for that.
Ditto for me, but I would also add AC to the list.
By grovelling before the likes of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, O'Reilly makes it look as if there may actually have been some "fire" to all the smoke that the Media Matters crowd is truly to blow up the collective backside of the American public.
Ah, so his remarks were sarcasm! This is the first time I'm hearing that, not having watched the actual show. The thing about sarcasm is, it doesn't always come across as sarcasm, especially in print. In a TV show, it should be plainly obvious. However, O'Reilly's drollness may have masked his sarcasm, letting this whole thing occur in the first place. And the "cherry pickers" must have lunged on his remarks as soon as they came out of his mouth, thinking woo-hoo, we'll have a field day with this one. Now I get it. They deliberately took his words and left out the sarcasm in an attempt to smear him.
Yes, you are correct billorites, Juan did jump the fence awhile back however he had cover from attacks by the left for obvious reasons but this time he tried to support Bill O. and well the left cannot have one of their own jumping off the plantation hence the "happy Negro" attack.
Can you imagine the vitriol from every MSM outlet if Bill O. had used the "happy Negro" slur?
"Just like Bush's analogy about Nelson Mandela and the Rush Limbaugh controversy, this is another effort to discredit someone by cherry-picking the transcript and stripping something of all context."
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