The Juan Williams uproar: Time to stop funding NPR?

After NPR fired Williams for saying that Muslims can make him nervous, conservatives are asking Congress to defund the radio network. Commentators weigh in

NPR's controversial dismissal of Juan Williams has renewed the conservative drive to strip the radio network of its federal funding.
(Image credit: Sreen shot)

NPR created a media firestorm by firing senior news analyst Juan Williams after he admitted, on Bill O'Reilly's Fox News show, that seeing "people in Muslim garb" on airplanes made him "worried" and "nervous." While NPR maintains that Williams' remarks violated its standards and ethics code, conservatives are arguing that the firing was a form of leftist censorship, and several — notably Fox personalities O'Reilly, Mike Huckabee, and Sarah Palin — are calling for Congress to "defund" NPR. (NPR says it indirectly gets about 2 percent of its $160 million annual budget from Congress.) Should Congress cut NPR loose? (Watch a Fox News discussion about the fallout for NPR)

Taxpayers shouldn't fund "propaganda": Juan Williams was "fired for telling the truth," says Aaron Gardner in RedState, about his "completely normal human response" to 9/11. Too bad for Williams his feelings don't mesh with "NPR's mission... to distort reality." As soon as the GOP takes over Congress, redlining this "taxpayer subsidized propaganda machine" should be a top priority.

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