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Juan Williams Firer a Soviet Fan?

By on 10.21.10 @ 4:17PM

Here’s a Vivian Schiller story.

Ms. Schiller is suddenly infamous as the National Public Radio executive with Soviet-style values on display in the firing of Juan Williams.

Where would an American media executive ever learn that dissent is not to be tolerated?

How about a film project called Portrait of the Soviet Union? 

It was lovely. A glowing documentary of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics produced in documentary film format by a big Soviet Union fan — Ted Turner.

The 1988 film was also made into a book of the same name, with Fitzroy MacLean, a onetime British MP listed as the author. By 1988 MacLean was the “chief consultant” for Turner Broadcasting.

So who cares?

As a point of interest in terms of the intolerance displayed by NPR President and CEO Schiller, it is perhaps worth noting that — yes indeed — Schiller comes about her intolerance for free speech honestly.

Ms. Schiller, it seems, had a fascination with the Russian language. Which led her to the Soviet Union after college, which led in turn to a job as a tour guide, which led to work on the documentary version of Turner’s Portrait of the Soviet Union.

Schiller was not a creative force on the film, she was simply using her Russian skills to help the Turner people get around the country. But it is interesting that a career that has blossomed in the hallowed halls of the notoriously intolerant American left-wing media began in one of the most infamously intolerant civilizations on earth — where Schiller was hired to work on what became a stunningly rose-colored look at the Communist tyranny.

Don’t take my word for it.

John Corry of the New York Times — that’s right, the New York Times —panned the film that Schiller helped facilitate. “History disappears down the memory hole in ‘Portrait of the Soviet Union,’”said Corry in his opening line of a scorching review that appeared in the Times on March 20, 1988.

The film said, said Corry caustically (Corry was the rare conservative at the Times), tells us: “The Soviet spirit just works wonders. From Moscow to Azerbaijan to deep in frozen Siberia, no one even frowns.”

Narrated by the late liberal actor Roy Scheider of Jaws fame, the Soviet Union is presented as — no kidding — the “place of tomorrow.” Asks Corry: “What happened to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago? It’s as if it never existed; the memory hole has opened up.” The series — which ran in seven parts — makes a big deal that everyone in the Soviet Union just gets along swimmingly, all marching along behind those big Red flags with the hammer and sickle.

Corry notes that actor Scheider happily prattles on about ”the greatest experiment in social engineering the world has ever seen.” Now the ”first stage of the revolution is nearing completion.”

The future was bright, the film inisited. Three years later the Soviet Union collapsed onto, as Reagan accurately predicted, the “ash heap of history.”

So what does Ms. Schiller herself have to say of this time in her life? In an interview in, of all places for an NPR executive, the February-March 2009 issue of Entrepreneur Magazine, she says

“At the time, Ted Turner went through this period of deep fascination with the Soviet Union … and they hired me to be a translator/production assistant/’fixer’—which in production terms is somebody in a foreign country who ‘makes it happen,’” Schiller says.

Understand this carefully. To be a “fixer” in a totalitarian country is to swim in the waters, understanding how it works and how to manipulate people to get things done. How, in other words, a society that will not tolerate dissent or free speech can silence that speech. 

 What makes one sit up and pay attention in the indescribably abysmal treatment of Juan Williams is that it comes at the hands of a woman who spent a serious part of her youth absorbing a working knowledge of how an intolerant society is run — including the media. If there is some blunt, Reagan-style condemnation of the Soviets from Schiller, it has yet to surface.

What has surfaced are admiring profiles where her time in what Reagan accurately termed the “Evil Empire” are recalled with fondness. Nary a negative word to say about Portrait of the Soviet Union. And why should there be? Schiller got a job out of the whole experience. She worked at Turner and CNN from 1988 until 2002, when she moved on and joined — yes — the New York Times Company as Senior Vice President and General Manager of NYTimes.com. And from that left-wing media perch to NPR.

Where, today, she brought the values of the Soviet Union into play against one of the more honorable and decent advocates of American liberalism — Juan Williams.

Is it a shame? Yes.

But it’s much more than that. It’s an outright assault on American First Amendment values.

From a media network that is funded by — you.

View all comments (67) |

PhilM| 10.21.10 @ 4:31PM

When will it drop the charade and just officially become National Pravda Radio?

Al Adab| 10.21.10 @ 4:33PM

There was no Pravda in Isvestia and no Isvestia in Pravda.

Why is it all the taxpayers are forced to fund anti-taxpayer organizations? Anybody notice all the Left groups Acorn, SEIU, La Raza, and so on are financed with public monies?

Alex| 10.22.10 @ 3:29AM

Al Adab, you absolutely right. For non-russian speaking Americans here is a piece of trivia:
In the Soviet Union there were 2 (TWO) MAJOR Central newspapers, both were the Regime mouthpieces
PRAVDA (rus) = TRUTH (eng)
IZVESTIA (rus) = NEWS (eng), so as Al righteously says:
There's no truth in "The News" and
There's no news in "The Truth"..
Every russian new that..

There's no Pravda in Izvestia and there's no Izvestia in Pravda
THer

Bob S| 10.22.10 @ 12:10PM

Your comment reminded me of a joke that was told in the old Soviet Union, as follows:

Two Russian friends perchance meet in a street. One says to the other: "How are things with you?"
The other says: "Fantastic! Couldn't be better!"
The one says: "How can you say that? Don't you read the newspapers?"
The other says: "Of course! How else would I know?"

DCuz | 10.21.10 @ 4:40PM

Congressional hearings need to be held to investigate her past and find out why a Communist-admiring Lefty is running NPR.

Eric Cartman| 10.21.10 @ 6:09PM

I can save you a lot of money and aggravation:

Q: Why (is) a Communist-admiring Lefty is running NPR?

A: Because there is a Communist-admiring Lefty in the White House.

Patriot| 10.22.10 @ 2:18AM

The Democrat party has ceased to exist--it is the American Marxist party now.

Schiller's not only a commie, she's stupid as a stump. Williams is going to sue the heck out of what's left of NPR after the liberal snakepit has been defunded.

Haha!

Ed in Texas| 10.22.10 @ 8:39AM

A Communist admiring Progressive is running NPR because it is a Communist admiring Progressive outfit. Having a Communist admiring (well, really admiring everyone and country which hates the US) Progressive in the White House didn't hurt, though.

Humphrey Dumfries| 10.21.10 @ 4:45PM

Corry's original review at NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/03.....enses.html

GreyLion| 10.21.10 @ 5:06PM

Mr Lord,
Nice expose. I am better informed about NPR than I have ever been because of it.
I don't know why I am not surpised by all of this, I guess I am getting jaded in my old age.
Again thanks for a very good article.

polistra | 10.21.10 @ 5:17PM

Actually that WAS the "first stage of the Revolution", the stage that happened in Russia. In 1989 the first stage ended and the second stage began. The second stage is happening in America.

baseball mom| 10.21.10 @ 6:26PM

I'm not surprised by any of it and Juan Williams shouldn't be either. Stopped listening to NPR years ago but occasionally would stop in. Finally stopped doing that after hearing aa breathless promo about an upcoming feature celebrating 80 years of China's red army. Yeah, celebrating.

Gag me.

Quartermaster| 10.21.10 @ 6:52PM

I am shocked, SHOCKED that Marxist admirers run NPR.

It's been that way for a very long time. Williams would be the last one shocked by it. The only question I have is, does Williams have a tort against NPR now. If he does, I would take it and run with it. Just make sure the entire case becomes celebrated and a complete embarrassment to the left. I know the left is shameless, but they do feel the ridicule that results.

Margie| 10.21.10 @ 8:15PM

Juan Williams Firer a Soviet Fan?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6_1Pw1xm9U

David Cay Johnston | 10.21.10 @ 8:43PM

That Jeffrey Lord seems not to understand the First Amendment is astonishing, but explains why he goes off on a rant about really hoary matters.

Too bad he did not do any actual reporting, including reading the Constitution.

The First Amendment protects us from government. Period.

Most Americans are "at will" employees who can be fired without reason. NPR, a private entity, says that Mr. Williams violated his contract and that he had been warned more than once about his employer's standards. It thus has to meet a higher standard than most employers in discharging Mr. Williams and no doubt feels confident it has the necessary record to sustain its position.

The fact that NPR gets a small portion of its budget from the taxpayers does not make it a government agency. Defense contractors, janitorial firms that clean government buildings and others who get every cent of their revenue from the government are not government agencies either.

Mr. Lord's attack on private property rights is disturbing, to be polite.

That Mr. Lord is attacking a nonprofit corporation for exercising its rights as an employer reveals an inchoate philosophy that is anything but conservative.

CountryClassKook| 10.21.10 @ 9:04PM

"NPR gets a small portion of its budget from the taxpayers"

Then lets cut that part of the budget, save the taxpayers a little money, and let CPB run as a private entity. I'm sure you would completely support that, correct Mr. Johnston?

Patriot| 10.22.10 @ 2:33AM

You're wrong, Johnston. NPR fired Williams because he espoused views that were anathema to the intolerant Marxists at NPR. The ugly weasel, Nina Totenberg, has uttered hateful, vile comments about Conservatives in the past and she's still there. Why the double-standard?
Sorry, equal treatment for all.

You're lying about the amount of public funding NPR receives, too. NPR hides the amount of taxpayer monies it receives by playing a shell-game with many radio stations around the country. NPR receives a lot of public funding.

Defund the Marxist snakepit, then we'll see how successful it really is!

Ed Molehair| 10.22.10 @ 8:30AM

How embarrassing to talk with such bravado and be absolutely incorrect. Another liberal lay attorney with no clue...so let's begin the education.

First, it doesn't surprise me that a New York Times reporter would be totally ignorant of the First Amendment or the Bill of Rights in whole. But a "Pulitzer Prize-winning" reporter? That tells you all you need to know about the journalistic and intellectual standards of the old media guard in America today.

Now, to correct your many fundamental errors that render your argument hilariously wrong:

NPR is not a "private," non-profit corporation. It is a publicly and privately funded non-profit organized pursuant to a 1967 federal law that established the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (which was created to bail out NPR, which couldn't survive on its own). If you had done some basic research, you would know that. But I guess NYT reporters like you have no need for research when they already know everything.

Because NPR receives approximately 10% of its budget from the federal government (and more from other governments; its members stations receive up to 70% of their budgets from federal taxpayers), it is subject to First Amendment scrutiny. If you had done some basic research into the past couple decades of Supreme Court precedent, you would know that. It takes about five minutes to discover from a simple Lexis (or, yes, Google) search. But why research when you already know the answer?

Now you can join the other old, angry white liberals curling up with their AM radios listening to the soft sounds of All Things Considered. I'm sure you're comforted by the fact that your fellow listeners who self-identified their race are 90% white. Diversity indeed. And, to hoist you on your own petard: Maybe that's why you support the firing of the only...nah...I couldn't stoop that low.

Tip: Never enter a legal debate unprepared.

Bob S| 10.22.10 @ 12:14PM

That's sort of like the old "Never bring a knife to a gunfight".

David Cay Johnston| 10.23.10 @ 11:38AM

You are wrong on the law and your financial statements.

NPR's status as a 501(c)3 means it can accept tax deductible gifts. Its privileged tax status is separate from its status as a private employer subject to the same employment laws as any other non-government employer headquartered in the District of Columbia.

As I noted, Mr. Williams was not an "at will" employee but had a contract, which NPR has said he violated repeatedly. We have not seen that contract, but NPR's statement suggests it sought counsel on the strength of its position before firing Mr. Williams, who has remedies if he believes that he was discharged in violation of his contract with his employer.

Your financing numbers are also wrong, as the public record has long shown.

NPR's information returns, which are public record, shows government grants from 2003 to 2008 ran between about $200,000 and about $650,000 of total revenue. NPR revenues in 2009 totaled $161 million, which means that government grants were a minor fraction of one percent of revenues. That's de minimus.

While it is true that "some" radio stations that pay member services fees get significant government funding, "some" is a huge qualifier. The 990 filings of the five large NPR affiliates I checked before my first post do not support the 70 percent claim, but I did not check every affiliate, just the ones that tend to have the most money.

When federal money goes to local NPR affiliates it is usually for specified public services, such as reading reports in the newspapers to the blind, which many stations do using volunteers. In such cases the grant money is not available to pay fees to NPR for its programming.

You also make up stuff up.

Nowhere did I wrote that I supported the firing of Mr. Williams. Indeed, I wrote that I defend his right to say what he did.

I wrote only about employer rights, to which posters here show more hostility than your average UAW member.

As I wrote below, Mr. Williams has a right to say what he did and many Americans share that view. However, he does not have any right to it to get paid by a specific employer for saying that (or anything else) nor does he have a right to violate the terms of his employment contract.

The First Amendment protects us from government, not private employers like NPR.

And to riff off your choice of retort -- why respond to what was actually written when you can just make things up?

Tip: Have some basic knowledge of the law, and the numbers, before writing, like knowing that tax law is not employment law and what numbers are in audited financial statements and tax reports.

Patriot| 10.23.10 @ 12:03PM

You still didn't address the egregious double standard of NPR's treatment of Williams and Totenberg. Why is that?

It's because you can't obfuscate your way out of the truth: NPR is biased toward the radical Left. Where is your vaunted "fairness" now?

Ed Molehair| 10.25.10 @ 3:44PM

If you expect me to track a thread for more than a day after I post, I expect you will offer well researched and well considered arguments. I’m disappointed, David.

First, you claimed that the First Amendment does not apply to NPR because it is not a government agency. You are wrong, as I said above. I can only assume you accept that fact by failing to respond.

Your new argument seems to be that because NPR is a 501(c)(3) it is not subject to the restrictions of the First Amendment protection. That, of course, is a non sequitur. 501(c)(3) status alone doesn’t exempt an entity from First Amendment scrutiny. If you did your research (what services do you use for your legal research?) you would know that. Off the top of my head, I can think of a recent example of the First Amendment protecting free expression on property owned by a 501(c)(3) to which the federal government gave exactly $0 in funding. Wonder why? Do the research and educate yourself. Your talking about 501(c)(3)s in this context reveals your basic cluelessness about the law. Frankly, your argument is laughable. I want confirmation of that Pulitzer Prize! ;)

Your financials, as I would expect from your side of the aisle, fail to add up. You, of course, read from the NPR playbook and quote terms like "direct funding." But don’t play games with people. Let’s look at NPR’s real overall revenue and see if my claim or yours is more likely accurate. When I’m done, you too can check NPR's own site and the publicly available information about all the member stations (not the 5 you cherry picked--or, as liberals like you would call it, "your robust statistical sample").

I'll get you started:

If you did some good research, you would learn that 40% of NPR's revenue comes “directly” from member stations. Member stations get 10.1% of their revenue “directly” from the federally created CPB (learn more about it in my post above) + 5.8% of their revenue "directly" from the federal, state, and local governments + 13.6% of their revenue "directly" from universities (virtually all, if not all, of which receive federal funding) + 9.6% of their revenue "directly" from foundations, including some that receive federal funding.

You can quibble at the corners and play semantic games, but you can do the math and you know where it leads. That's at least 16% (and, in reality, probably at least 25%-but I won't make up stats to support that educated guess) of member station revenue. 40% x 16% means at least 6.4% of total NPR revenue--assuming every institution and university were private--which is closer to my 10% than your 0% (de minimis, in your legalese).

But wait! NPR also gets direct funding from entities who are public (or are publicly funded). Apparently you think the $1 million gift from GM (plus the $500K from Saturn) isn't public funding.(?!) (Full disclosure: NPR's most recent donation reports are from 2008 and do not indicate the date of the donation, but does the point change?) What about the $500K from PBS? Even they admit they are a public entity, so why didn't you include that money in your figures? There are plenty more examples. Find them and add them up.

Sorry, David, but you need to dig deeper if you want to argue at this level. This isn't some pseudo-intellectual liberal echo chamber devoid of critical thinking. Bring some real research, some real facts, and some real understanding of the principles, or you can't expect to engage intelligently.

The reality is that NPR gets more than de minimis federal funding, as you claim. Even the most conservative (pun intended) estimates produce at least 7.5% of total NPR revenue, and we both know the number is more than that. Secretly, I’ll bet your Pulitzer Prize my 10% is more accurate, if not low.

With respect to the member station finances, cherry picking 5 “large NPR affiliates” reflects your totally misunderstanding of federal funding and NPR’s member stations. Do you know how federal funding makes its way to member stations? Do you understand why different stations get different levels of funding? If so, you would understand why your cherry picked sample was a useless way to test my claim. If not, why even engage me? Do comprehensive research, and you will find my claim accurate and previously verified. I doubt you have the intellectual commitment to do comprehensive research, though, so...

But, as I said above, federal funding is not required to trigger First Amendment protections, so even if your de minimis claim were correct, it would prove nothing. (Feel free to continue the debate on that point, though.)

I have responded to every one of your points, including the ones that make no sense or were nonresponsive. You, on the other hand, still have not explained why you so vociferously defend an entity that essentially exclusively speaks to a 90% white, liberal, “relatively affluent” (NPR’s words) demographic. Is it because you love to get your preferred radio programming subsidized by the government? Or is it just coincidental that you perfectly fit the only demographic NPR truly serves?

David Cay Johnston| 10.21.10 @ 9:15PM

CountryClassKook, red herring. I am neutral on that. We can cut all NPR funding or increase it. That is a political decision. Now stick to the point here -- Jeffrey Lord's half baked and ill-informed thinking.

The point is the American Spectator's columnist displaying ignorance of the First Amendment and in doing so assaulting private property rights.

Stick to the point and don't go off on tangents.

Truth to Power| 10.21.10 @ 10:36PM

DCJ is the one who wandered off point. Lord's piece was about Schiller and what an idiotic twit she is. He makes a last point about first amendment "values" and the DCJ springs into motion. DCJ confuses values with law. I guess it is not surprising that a NY Times and Nation contributor has no idea what that may mean. Public Radio has become a far left enterprise and should not get a cent from the government. It shouldn't be called public when it represents the opinions of about 5% of the country. By the way while we are at it, why should a senile know-nothing-political-hack like Bill Moyers have a government paid gig? They are all at will employees with shows that nobody watches. Send them home. No more free lunches for fat cats like Schiller and Moyers. No more using my tax dollars to advertise DCJ's book either. I guess he is an example of another fat cat using the government to enrich himself. Shame on you D Cay.

Patriot| 10.22.10 @ 2:36AM

Figured. Another Leftist whore peddling his Marxist crap.

Buzz off, Johnston.

David Cay Johnston| 10.22.10 @ 6:48AM

Patriot,

How Soviet of you -- with no thought to the actual facts in my post about employer rights you engage in an ad hominem denunciation.

And you do so in cowardly fashion, not even signing your name, but hiding behind a nom d'Internet. Man up and sign your name.

You can like or dislike the decision to hire and to fire Mr. Williams, but the fact remains that in this country employers (like me) have the right to hire and fire at will unless the employer has a contract with an employee. Mr. Williams had a contract and NPR says he violated it repeatedly. If he was wrongly discharged he has remedies.

Pariot evidently thinks contract rights and employer rights are "Marxist crap," since that is what I was peddling.

The firing of Mr. Williams has NOTHING to do with the First Amendment, as Mr. Lord brings up with his sleight of phrase about "values."

To be clear, I think Mr. Williams said what many Americans think. He is free to say it and I defend his right to say it – but he has no right to get paid by any particular employer for saying it, which is the point.

As Aristotle taught, democracy means “to rule and to be ruled in turns.” If you dislike government funding of NPR then win enough votes to stop it. If you dislike NPR then choose not to listen, though that is a foolish strategy since it is by hearing from voices we do not like that we often learn new insights and understand how to counter their views in the marketplace of ideas.

And Truth to Power, I laughed out loud at your suggestion that I am a "fat cat." I have worked for private employers ever since I went to work full-time at age 13, as well as running businesses in the competitive market.

Authors, in case you have failed to notice, are prime examples of people who earn their living in a competitive market.

My books expose how hundreds of billions of tax dollars the government forces you to pay become gifts to the richest among us. In some cases the profits these companies report are smaller than the gifts of taxpayer funds. In other words, some of these firms would not be viable without the welfare taxpayers provide.

Our governments do not gather statistics on these taxpayer dollars given to the politically connected, as they do with money spent education, aid for the disabled or other programs that you may like or hate. Indeed, government works hard to hide many of these gifts to people and businesses whose owners are, in Truth to Power’s phrase, fat cats.

Through years of hard work I dug out of the public record how these stealth subsidies work, identified people and companies who get many of the tax dollars you are forced to pay and showed how these subsidies damage the competitive market, in good part by destroying family-owned enterprises that operate in the competitive marketplace.

Having to pay taxes that go to these fat cats keeps the rest of us cats economically lean.

So pardon me, Patriot and Truth to Power, given what I write about as a champion of competitive markets and exposer of welfare for the super-rich as I roll on the floor laughing at your ridiculous characterizations.

Truth to Power| 10.22.10 @ 8:13AM

DCJ looks like he rolls in whatever he is doing. Fat cat was a kind characterization. I am all for getting rid of government welfare but that includes reporters who use government money to advertise their books. He can't argue with the premise of the article so he tries to distract. It is always surprising to see what a dimwit the average reporter is. Troll on DCay.

David Cay Johnston| 10.22.10 @ 8:58AM

T to P you just make stuff up while hiding behind your nom d'Internet. You write that I use "government money to advertise" my books. That's false.
News coverage about my books on Fox, CNBC, NPR and anywhere else is not advertising. And since people have gone to prison, laws have been enacted and CEOs fired and given up perks as a result of my work it qualifies as news.
You make up more stuff in the next sentence since my original post took issue with the "First Amendment values" point of the Lord article. There is no First Amendment issue in the firing of Mr. Williams.

Passerby| 10.22.10 @ 11:47AM

This will likely be long-winded, so an on-topic note first. I’m similarly ambivalent about Juan’s firing. I don’t think his comments were appropriate (particularly in context--one should not be condemned for being honest about personal feelings, but the quoted remark was part of a larger statement that to *not* be concerned about Muslims on one’s flight is to be in denial of an unfortunate reality. That, in my opinion, cultivates or validates the kind of intolerance [or, more appropriately, “empirically justified” prejudice] that Mr. Lord’s piece condemns.) However, he is one of several journalists who have been recently fired for sharing their personal opinions (Helen Thomas, Octavia Nasr, Rich Sanchez), and I think this trend points to anxieties caused by decentralized media. New media has lowered the standards of rigor and objectivity quite a bit, and journalists are now treated as individual voices instead of employees tasked with relaying the so-called truth. It’s never been objective--while the news is an important source of information about the world, those who produce it must decide which events are important, and which facts about those events are the most meaningful. They write stories, in other words, so even if they have the purest of intentions, they tell us what we *should* know. An overly empowered centralized media is concerning, just as is media in which individual opinions are disseminated with the power and credibility of a news network. I guess the question we should be asking, then, has less to do with this specific case and the agenda of the particular network, and more the role of and limits to personal opinions in the media as it evolves. Moreover, it seems that civic engagement requires us (as it always has) to think about how we can work toward understanding different happenings as fully as possible and how the media can help and hurt this effort.

That said...Mr. Johnson, thank you for being thoughtful and patient enough to respond in such a lucid and nuanced manner. In general, I have to say that the comments on this board are considerably more articulate than those I've encountered elsewhere, which is in a way concerning: more condescending threads of liberal discourse frequently dismiss "angry conservatives" as uneducated and blinded by unjustified rage. Here we see that one can be both educated and justified (in a broader cultural sense--conservatives have reason to feel attacked and underrepresented, I think) but nevertheless blinded by rage. Mr. Johnson pointed to ways in which energy could be more productively directed toward more constructive, substantial civic engagement, which made me hopeful that subsequent comments would accept the invitation from someone who shares many of the same values about government spending. That this has not happened so far speaks to why Congress is incapable of the efficiency that our now rapidly changing world demands. Dialog is such a powerful and constructive resource, but we (I readily admit my guilt here) approach it backwards--not as the collaborative development of ideas that can help us both, but as a fight to the death with pre-formulated stances. A more accessible, decentralized media is making this worse, it seems (a number of recent studies suggest that more intelligent people are more likely to find resources to support their original viewpoint), which is sad and ironic (but also hopeful) in that new media ostensibly provides us (in the largest sense) with an incredible resource for finding and talking with one another.

I say this as someone who has lost faith in both parties, for the precise reason that they’ve become so hermetic and so polarized that they both lay claim to and prohibit the values I love. And because these are *loved* values, there’s no way to separate our politics from our identities. Sigh. On one hand, I see liberal friends and colleagues getting ready to attend Jon Stewart’s rally next week, which I fully expect to be a demonstration of reductive and self-righteous rage that reflects precisely the style of discourse that the event was supposedly created to counter. On the other hand, the nature of this thread substantiates their claims of hysteria, however hypocritical. For example, while I appreciate Mr. Molehair’s attention to detail and accuracy (though I would like someone to use the same care to distinguishing “soviet” from “Marxist”—a problematic conflation, given the argument in the originating piece) the name calling, passive aggressive allegations of racism, and generally denigrating nature of his post turned what could have been a useful clarification (I assume, not being familiar with the legal details myself) into something that was almost literally painful to read. Why the sneer? We are humans speaking to humans. I thought we were championing tolerance.

Patriot| 10.22.10 @ 7:28PM

You obviously didn't listen to all of Juan Williams' statement! He argued with O'Reilly about stereotyping Muslims and attacked bigotry toward them as a people.

The only sneering came from the NPR witch who cruelly insulted Juan Williams by insinuating he need psychiatric help.

Get your facts straight.

Passerby| 10.22.10 @ 10:42PM

Embarrassed to say that indeed, I only saw that portion of the show and figured I'd gotten the context of the brief remark that's been circulating. Glad to hear he was opposing anti-Islamic sentiments--I wouldn't expect anything less, but it's nice to know it was part of the same conversation.

Also, apologies: I didn't finish my comment up there. I meant to say that while I don't think his comments were appropriate (which isn't to say that I think they were out of any kind of blanket animosity towards Muslims...though the suggestion that it's realistic to be concerned about them on flights seems...I'm having a hard time seeing that as a stereotype [Isn't that the whole issue with stereotypes? We don't think we're being stereotypical, we think we're just making an observation about how things really are...] Actually, it would be very helpful to see the whole segment--would you happen to have a link? If not I can look around some more.) I don't think he deserved to be fired. Again, it seems like it would be useful to think about this in the context of the other journalist firings and the media's role in our current society.

Schiller's remarks were childish and completely out of line, I agree. My frustration about this conversation was that even though everyone agreed so strongly that she was out of line in her baseless personal attack, no one hesitated to lash out in the same way at first sight of an alternate view (I shouldn't say that...maybe people did and simply chose not to weigh in. But certainly no one stopped intervened.) Same situation here--I'd hoped to nudge the conversation toward a more constructive dialog, with hopes that someone professing their love for America would treat fellow Americans (because what else is there?) and patriots with respect. It's not that "Get your facts straight" is disrespectful exactly, but it's not terribly generous in spirit either. Maybe you read my comment as passive aggressive. Understandable now that I look back on it, but I promise that wasn't the case.

Either way, without trying to draw attention away from my incomplete review of the show, just as with Mr. Molehair's comments, it's not just about the facts--even if we all had the same facts, we'd still disagree on values. It's the biggest challenge there is in collective action, but also why we've made it as far as we have. I'd just like for us to stop treating different values as if they were aberrations resulting from warped realities, communist brainwashing, and so on.

Patriot| 10.23.10 @ 12:41AM

Love your sweet, gentle sensibility, Passerby--ever tried it on the unruly beasts at Huff-Po?

Try it and then let us know how it worked out for you.

Truth to Power| 10.22.10 @ 7:40PM

I DCay hasn't been forthright about his connections to

Truth to Power| 10.22.10 @ 7:58PM

In the interest of the full story, DCay should tell us of his connections with Schiller and NPR. I don't really expect him to be honest but there is a record out there that indicates he didn't show up to be thick about first amendment values but to distract from the attacks on the Democratic Schiller and NPR. Pathetic. Typical liberal reporter. By the way when you advertise your stupid book on public TV, you are using tax payer dollars to improve your sales. You were smarter to use Fox. I thought you were making a moral point not a legal one concerning welfare for fat cats like yourself. Man up DCay and give some money back to the government. What a tool.

Patriot| 10.23.10 @ 12:34AM

A moral point? I'm doubtin' it--he's a liberal after all, and morals aren't their forte!

David Cay Johnston| 10.23.10 @ 12:21PM

The words "moral," "morality," "moral hazard" and the like appear on 10 percent of the pages in FREE LUNCH in the context of Adam Smith, eminent domain, the Old Testament, ancient Greek law and stealth devices I expose that take from the many to further enrich fat cats.

For example, executives who pay keeps going up while shareholder values declines because they "...face little or no risk but can reap great reward, another area in which Adam Smith, the father of capitalism, warned us about moral failure and its corrosive effects. All of this can be traced back to how the government sets rules and enforces them. Many wasteful rules are gone. But so are many virtuous rules, replaced by ones that encourage and even reward misconduct."

and on eminent domain:

***
When government uses this power to take one man’s land to enrich another man, a moral hazard arises. The hazard was well known to America’s founders. Alexander Hamilton, at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, said that protecting “the security of property” was one of the two “great objects of government.”
The moral hazard is that the powerful and connected will manipulate the levers of government to redistribute wealth, forcibly taking from someone else so they can grow richer still....
****

and then this

***

subsidy seekers exercise unrighteous dominion and oppress those with less. This is a moral evil denounced relentlessly throughout Old Testament and New.
*****

and finally this example about on one-armed fisherman and timberman Scott Cook's fight to save his family's forest lands so they can live off the harvest in old age, I wrote:

***

“It’s morally offensive for government to take one man’s land to benefit another,” he said. “It’s about guys with money making more money” at the expense of those who have less. “His project is no more important than my project, his family is no more important than my family.”
*****

I teach two graduate level courses to law and accounting and MBA students on the history of property, tax and regulatory law that are deeply grounded in morals and the development of our ideals about what is moral.

So rather than doubt, why don't you go do some actual reading of my work at the local library?

David Cay Johnston| 10.23.10 @ 12:04PM

I have no connection to Schiller.

Last summer I sat a few seats away from here at an awards luncheon. Shaking hands was the only time I met her.

I have done perhaps five paid commentaries at $150 each for NPR in the last 30 years. Those fees were donated to charity.

And if you think showing how government forces you to pay taxes that it gives to various companies (which is unfair to competing businesses and forces you to pay more taxes to make up for the revenue the cops, schools, etc., do not get) is "stupid?" Really?

Well, then, do enjoy being taxed to support the already rich and then being taxed again to make up for the taxes the government forced you to pay and then let them have.

As for me, I like my tax dollars to be as few as possible, used only for government services and -- in accord with the religious texts -- not for redistribution to the richest of the rich.

As for "fat cat," it means a wealthy person, especially one who donates to politicians. I have never donated a penny to a politicians. And don't quality as wealthy, just prudent in spending less than I make as I drove my Honda from my mortgaged suburban home in one of the lowest cost housing markets in America.

It is bizarre that people here think my work exposing how taxes are used as welfare for the super rich, and showing ways we could reduce taxes (and litigation) is treated with such hostility.

Of course if you have not actually read my work, and thus only imagine what is in it, you would have no idea that my books champion competitive markets and expose rigged ones, reveal hidden devices that jack up your taxes and reveal massive diversions of tax dollars (that you could have kept in your pocket) to fat cats.

If you are in favor of the things my books expose all I can say is there are terms to describe your viewpoint, but "conservative" is not one of them.

Frank| 10.23.10 @ 11:05AM

DCJ makes the point that NPR is perfectly within their rights as an employer to fire Mr. Williams for any or no reason at all (assuming he has an "at will" contract). As an employer, I agree; however, I have not seen anyone agrue that Williams' termination was illegal, merely ugly and hypocritical. Speculation on the reasons Ms. Schiller terminated Wiliams employment have lead to comparisons to Soviet-style intolerance. The purpose is to highlight the hypocrosy of the left - which touts itself as "tolerant" and "diverse", but really can't stand opposing opinion. Few on the left even consider conservative ideas as even worthy of debate - they are simply dismissed as Cro-magnon or ignorant without engagement. Mr. Williams, at least, engaged in direct debate with opposing ideas.

The gall. No wonder he was fired. It speaks more loudly about NPR than Mr. Williams.

Ned the Red| 10.21.10 @ 9:19PM

That explains the phychiatrist comment. I am sure she would love to have good old Juan sent in for a mental evaluation (Soviet style) and then sent to a mental institution for treatment.

Ray Ernst| 10.21.10 @ 9:38PM

Good article. Hope that this is a tipping point for NPR support. The Juan Williams issue surfaces the NPR hidden agenda. Her comment on 'phychiatrist' was disgusting and very unprofessional; particularly, the way she articulated it and the body language. Hope that she resigns or gets fired (w/o pay).

skedaddle| 10.22.10 @ 8:47AM

The comments on seeing a psychiatrist really do need to be seen, not read. She was pleased with herself and meant for her comment to be as insulting/threatening as it was. It struck me as very soviet and now I understand why.

Maura| 10.21.10 @ 10:49PM

Interesting, isn't it, how much more "fair and balanced" Fox is? No problem having a liberal on the payroll.

NPR -- just more liberal fascism. And that Schiller was a shill for the Soviets...Perfect.

George S| 10.22.10 @ 12:12AM

It's interesting to note how liberals invoke the concept of at-will employment ignore a century of labor law to cheer the termination of a 'worker' who is rocking the boat, so to speak.

As for Schiller... I'm sure as an admirer of Soviet socialism she understands that the 'worker' Williams brings in more value to NPR than she does. After all, isn't Williams the proletariat whose labor is exploited by the bourgeoisie Schiller? So maybe some commentators are right: Mr. Lord got it wrong -- there's nothing "soviet" about Schiller's handling of Williams. She acted more like a greedy capitalist pig.

Patriot| 10.22.10 @ 2:39AM

At least capitalist pigs make their own money; greedy leftist pigs steal it from us!

Kilgore Trout| 10.22.10 @ 6:49AM

The author mentioned First Amendment VALUES, Apparently the nuancewas too difficult for Davie Cay.
Across the spectrum of programs on NPR, from Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me to Gross, toAll (Lefty) Things Considered, it's lefties all day every day.

Don L| 10.22.10 @ 7:14AM

The sad part is that this is but one of the many leftist institutionalized "agencies"(if you will) that loathes truth, for it exposes their inner soul and an agenda which must be protected by lies. Juan made the mistake of speaking the truth and just like the abortion they so love, Juan has now been given his new status as a victim of ...tah, dah! "Choice."

The only question left now, is whether or not this sometimes reasonable man will wake up and reject the evil that is liberalism-all of it.

Don L| 10.22.10 @ 7:23AM

" Scheider happily prattles on about ''the greatest experiment in social engineering the world has ever seen..."

Too bad the danged shark didn''t eat him up!

The more they get rich because of the capitalist system -the more they fight it.

Eddy| 10.22.10 @ 7:45AM

Now a day's communism and Islam as a like as you understand them! How stupid you guys are? Sorry you have been fed by wrong info. Communism and Islam were and still are enemies of each others. You guys like to hear what you deeply rooted inside out of you as bogus info. Having very strong and unreasonable opinions and refusing to change them or listen to other people.
Back old days, you guys did not trust Russians. Now you don't trust Chinese. Tomorrow you won't trust yourself, sorry. By the way I feel I am a liberal. I am not bigoted.

Ken (Old Texican)| 10.22.10 @ 10:20AM

Mr. Lord,
Thank you for the background on the NPR CEO.
See Booger's letter on the main page in comments.
Hilarious.
Eddy,
either English is not your first language...or you are simply an uneducated communist, (pardon the shorthand). PS: we don't have the tools here to fix stupid. Sorry

Patriot| 10.22.10 @ 7:21PM

We still don't trust Russians, moron--and we certainly don't trust the words of a silly fool like you.

tonypal| 10.22.10 @ 10:41AM

When Juan Williams looks back on this week, he will realize it was one of the greatest weeks of his life. He is now better known than he could have ever dreamed, he's been given an enormous raise by Fox and a promise to develop a show and he is a figure of enormous sympathy - not that he necessarily wants to be viewed that way.

Juan is a decent guy who just happens to disagree with me and many others here at TAS on most issues, but not all. He's always respectful and generally has something interesting to say. Most importantly, he has inadverdently exposed NPR for the politically correct pile of manure they've been for a long time. It's about time they were defunded, along with PBS. What the hell is the federal government doing funding radio and tv shows anyway?

scythe| 10.22.10 @ 11:24AM

Well..well. That might explain her remark that Williams needed PSYCHIATRIC evaluation after straying from PC orthodoxy. After all, the Soviets believed that all who strayed from the mental cages erected for them needed "reeducation and evaluation". The penetration and infiltration of Communist culture in USA needs to be a topic of wide discussion following the election particularly how it is being used to BRAINWASH in the education of America's children. It is more acceptable now to be a Che devotee than to quote James Madison. How did that happen? We have all been asleep thinking that with the "demise" of the the USSR, things were just hunky dory. But ideas are not contained within geographical borders and like a virulent bacteria can spread themselves everywhere they find a willing or unsuspecting host. SMASH MARXISM EVERYWHERE IN AMERICA.

Mad Hatter| 10.22.10 @ 2:51PM

Viv Schiller says, "Please do not revile!
Juan's just going away for a while.
To a spacious gulag -
He can write a cool log,
In Siberia, where all people smile!"

Mad Hatter| 10.22.10 @ 2:59PM

About journalistic ethics she's gushin',
She can repeat, if you wish it, in Russian.
We turning Soviet?
Viv responds, "No! Nyet!
And that is the end of the discussion!"

RichMo| 10.22.10 @ 5:29PM

Revs. Al & Jesse: Where are you on this?
Pres. Obama: Did NPR act "stupidly"?

thegrandmufti| 10.23.10 @ 11:33AM

Defunding CPB will be low hanging fruit for the new Congress and an easy payback to the Tea Party for rescuing the GOP from irrelevance.

If CPB is not defunded along with the other new communist groups on the pubic teat, the GOP will pay dearly.

Daniel| 10.23.10 @ 6:14PM

David Johnson your claim here, which is tangential to the original article, is that Ms. Schiller had every right to fire Juan Williams.
However, your claim is based entirely on your accepting as truth her claim that Mr. Williams had violated his contract many times, and he had been warned that these violations were sufficient breaches of his contract to warrant its termination.
The trouble I find with this apparently naive acceptance by you, is that I am unaware at this time of anything at all that Mr. Williams has done which constituted a breach of his contract.
Was the violation that Mr. Williams appeared as liberal voice on another network?
Was it the content of his remarks in the recent incident?
I doubt that any of this would be considered by any rational person a ground for breaking a contract by an even quasi public organization.
But even more importantly, unilaterally breaking a contract and immediately publicly accusing Mr. Williams of mental instability, seems to show a malice that might make the firing actionable at law.
The only thing protecting NPR and Ms. Schiller is the fact that Williams would be hard put to claim damages, since he has already received a more lucrative contract from Fox.

David Cay Johnston| 10.23.10 @ 7:17PM

I assume you were referring me despite three errors in rendering my name.

Sadly, you did not read my carefully nuanced words with any more care than you rendered my name.

From my original post, emphasis added by me:

NPR, a private entity, SAYS that Mr. Williams violated his contract and that he had been warned MORE THAN ONCE about his employer's standards. It thus has to meet a HIGHER standard than most employers in discharging Mr. Williams and no doubt feels confident it has the necessary record to sustain its position.

And from a later post:

Mr. Williams has a right to say what he did and many Americans share that view. However, he does not have any right to to get paid by a specific employer for saying that (or anything else) nor does he have a right to violate the terms of his employment contract.

The First Amendment protects us from government, not private employers like NPR.

And in another post I pointed out that if Mr. Williams feels he has not violated his contract he has remedies. Given the potential costs in such a judgment and the fact that he was warned more than I indicated that NPR probably consulted with counsel and feels it is has solid grounds for its actions.

Your post and some others here make me wonder if readers understand the rules newsrooms operate under, rules that are far more strict and extensive than those at most employers.

Newsrooms are unusual in that anyone can argue with the highest boss and challenge them, but they also have rules that prohibit even your children who live at home from having bumper stickers supporting candidates. In some cases newspapers have fired reporters or forced them to leave because grown children took jobs with politicians, the most best known such case involving a California reporter whose daughter took a job with a Democrat that was seen as compromising the newspaper.

Patriot| 10.23.10 @ 11:27PM

You are a coward! You still haven't answered my question regarding the unfairness of NPR's egregious double-standard for Williams and Totenberg. "Strict newsroom standards" BS!

Stop trying to peddle your damn book--we aren't interested. You can't even answer a simple question about NPR's outrageous bias, which answers a critical question about your (lack of) integrity.

David Cay Johnston| 10.24.10 @ 9:46AM

I did not comment on whether it was appropriate or not to fire Mr. Willliams or anyone else, only on the facts that there is no First Amendment issue and the appalling lack of respect in this forum for employer rights, which are a matter of principles.

You err in asserting I "peddle" my last bestseller. I suggested here to someone that they get a copy at the library, which means a copy already sold. That issue arose in response to a criticism; I did not initiate the matter.

However, I am glad to know you have no interest in how government forces you to pay taxes for the benefit of private individuals and companies, since it shows you know nothing of the actual patriots who started this country, but are by nature a socialist of the stripe who, as Orwell taught, supports taking from the many to benefit the few. Neither of us will be getting any of the apples and milk, but you don't care to learn why.

Your brand of patriotism -- take from the many through taxes that go to the rich few -- was exactly what the people stood against that rainy day of Dec. 16, 1773 at Old South. They protested a tax exemption for the rich friends of King George, a tax favor accompanied by a monopoly that meant government was forcing people to pay higher prices while cutting the taxes of the very rich in London,

So while you lack the backbone to use your own traceable name, at least stop trying to suggest you have anything in common with the patriots who started this country to stop such tax favors for the politically connected.

Patriot| 10.25.10 @ 2:33AM

But what about fairness, David the moron? You libtards are always bleating about fairness. But when it comes down to it, you libtards are not fair at all, you just use the concept when it favors you--just like free speech.

In short, you are a hypocrite (and most likely a lousy author). I'd rather undergo a tortuous root-canal than read your silly, dishonest liberal tripe.

GBARg| 10.24.10 @ 10:32AM

David Cay Johnston, it's amazing how you can write with a broomstick up your ass. Keeps that ol' lefty spine fake-ramrod straight, right?

Jacke| 10.26.10 @ 11:11AM

Mr. Johnston, you still haven't answered Patriot's question "regarding the unfairness of NPR's egregious double-standard for Williams and Totenberg." You have acted like it was never asked, and he/she has asked it several times. Enough to now make me interested in how you justify firing one employee but not another for virtually the same offense. It's a simple question. Please answer.

Liberty Clinger| 10.27.10 @ 8:16AM

"actor Scheider happily prattles on about ''the greatest experiment in social engineering the world has ever seen.''

“Is it possible or impossible to warn someone of danger? How many witnesses have been sent to the West in the last 60 years? How many waves of immigrants? How many millions of persons? They are all here. You meet them every day. You know who they are: if not by their spiritual disorientation, their grief, their melancholy, then you can distinguish them by their accents by their external appearance… Coming from different countries and without consulting with one another...they have brought to you exactly the same experience; they tell you exactly the same thing: they warn you of what is already happening. It's characteristic that communism is so devoid of arguments that it has none to advance against its opponents in our Communist countries. It lacks arguments and hence there is the club, the prison, the concentration camp, and insane asylums with forced confinement... Communism has never concealed the fact that it rejects all absolute concepts of morality. It scoffs at any consideration of "good" and "evil" as indisputable categories. Communism considers morality to be relative, to be a class matter. Depending upon circumstances and the political situation, any act, including murder, even the killing of thousands, could be good or could be bad... We (in the Soviet Union) are slaves there from birth. We are born slaves. I'm not young anymore, and I myself was born a slave; this is even more true for those who are younger. We are slaves, but we are striving for freedom. You, however, were born free. If so, then why do you help our slave owners?" Alexander Solzhenitsyn

http://www.alor.org/Library/LegacyofTerror.htm

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