JUAN WILLIAMS: Even after they fired me, called me a bigot and publicly advised me to only share my thoughts with a psychiatrist, I did not call for defunding NPR. I am a journalist, and NPR is an important platform for journalism. But last week my line of defense for NPR ran into harsh political realities. Rep. Steve Israel (D- N.Y.) chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sent out a fundraising letter with the following argument for maintaining public funding of NPR: “They [Republicans] know NPR plays a vital role in providing quality news programming — from rural radio stations to in-depth coverage of foreign affairs. If the Republicans had their way, we’d only be left with the likes of Glenn Beck, Limbaugh and Sarah Palin to dominate the airwaves.” With that statement, Congressman Israel made the case better than any Republican critic that NPR is radio by and for liberal Democrats. He is openly asking liberal Democrats to give money to liberal Democrats in Congress so they can funnel federal dollars into news radio programs designed to counter and defeat conservative Republican voices. MORE
JUAN WILLIAMS: You know what’s interesting is that when I’m talking to you guys most of the time if I’m on this couch, I’m offering you guys a liberal position here on Fox. You know, you guys invite me on and say yeah, okay, so what do you think, Juan? Apparently, that kind of standard where you say what does the other person think, or give me a different perspective was threatening to them. And it’s particularly threatening that I am willing to talk with people on the other side, whether it be you or Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity, and somehow they think that — now this is the bizarre part — I am legitimizing Fox News by my presence […] Fox is one of the few places where people identify me as the liberal, because I’m not that liberal. MORE
WIKIPEDIA: The term comes from a speech, Message to the Grass Roots, given by African American activist Malcolm X, where he explains that during slavery, there were two kinds of slaves: “house Negroes,” who worked in the master’s house and “field Negroes,” who performed the manual labor outside. He characterizes the house Negro as having a better life than the field Negro, and thus unwilling to leave the plantation, and potentially more likely to support existing power structures that favor whites over blacks. MORE