America's degraded public debate

[Commentary] Contrary to majority opinion in the US media, National Public Radio was perfectly within its rights -- and was right -- to fire Juan Williams for last week's comments that Muslims made him nervous on airplanes, delivered on the Fox TV network.

It is less a question of what he said than where he said it. I would go further. NPR should have fired him years ago, on the grounds that running off at the mouth in the putrid kitchen that is talk media is inconsistent with the higher standards of objectivity practised at NPR. NPR should also tell Mara Liasson, another staffer who appears regularly on Fox (as a liberal punching bag for the conservative heavies) that she has a choice to make; stick with her employers, or change partners for the (fleeting) fame and fortune that Rupert Murdoch is accustomed to dangling.

The Williams incident also served to remind how degraded political debate has become. In conservative demonology - exemplified by, but not confined to, Fox -- NPR stands as a redoubt of the "far left," a bastion of political correctness and guilty of closet racism, all accusations now laid at its door by the once progressive Williams. In reality, it is the closest America comes to the BBC, wielding its liberal tendencies with a small stick. It is also a bit smug and boring and, fair enough, politically correct.