Mike Huckabee: Defund NPR over Juan Williams firing
By Matt DeLong
With the news that National Public Radio has fired longtime NPR and Fox News commentator Juan Williams over anti-Muslim comments he made Monday on Fox's "The O'Reilly Factor," some of Williams' Fox colleagues are coming to his defense. Williams said he gets "worried" and "nervous" when he sees people dressed in Muslim-style clothing on airplanes.
Former Arkansas governor and Fox talk show host Mike Huckabee's HuckPAC released a statement blasting NPR for violating Williams' First Amendment rights and called on Congress to defund the public radio organization. (The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides some money to NPR, receives approximately 15 percent of its funds from the federal government.) From Huckabee's statement:
While I have often enjoyed appearing on NPR programs and have been treated fairly and objectively, I will no longer accept interview requests from NPR as long as they are going to practice a form of censorship, and since NPR is funded with public funds, it IS a form of censorship. It is time for the taxpayers to start making cuts to federal spending, and I encourage the new Congress to start with NPR.
Sarah Palin, also a Fox News contributor, weighed in on Twitter and also claimed Williams' First Amendment rights had been breached.
Of course, the notion that the First Amendment protects you from consequences for saying things on national television that embarrass your employer is highly questionable at best.
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By Matt DeLong | October 21, 2010; 10:31 AM ET
Categories: 44 The Obama Presidency
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