Rachel Maddow endorses the Hollywood blacklist

I admit, i wasn't paying a lot of attention to cable "news" when Juan Williams got borked at NPR. I caught this gem from MSNBC when Williams did an interview last month with CSPAN.


First i just love the arrogance of the handoff between Big Keith and his dashing protege.

KEITH OLBERMANN, “COUNTDOWN” HOST: And now to explain the NPR firing Juan Williams and how that is anything but a First Amendment issue, the 4,932nd time this has come up in the last two years—ladies and gentlemen, here is Rachel Maddow.
Good evening, Rachel.
RACHEL MADDOW, HOST: I intend to just keep repeating it and eventually it will stick.
OLBERMANN: We have to stamp it on people‘s foreheads backward so they can read it in the mirror.

Apparently only stupid people had a problem with NPR's actions. The whole controversy was nothing more than a misunderstanding of the first amendment. Lucky for us, Rachel Maddow will keep setting us straight no matter how long it takes.

MADDOW: The short-hand headline for what happened with Mr. Williams today is Juan Williams fired from his job because of those comments about Muslims.


To be more precise about it, to be more accurate, it should be noted that Juan Williams had two jobs and he lost one of them. He lost his job on National Public Radio, which said his comments were, quote, “inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices.”


So, Juan Williams is no longer working for National Public Radio. That‘s true. But he most certainly did not lose his job at FOX News. In fact, today, Juan Williams was given a raise at FOX News as a result of this whole thing. Quote, “FOX News handed Williams a new three-year contract Thursday morning, in a deal that amounts to nearly $2 million, a considerable bump up from his previous salary.”


Well, nearly $2 million. Mazel tov.


FOX News chief executive, Roger Ailes, said of Mr. Williams, quote, “He‘s an honest man whose freedom of speech is protected by FOX News on a daily basis.”


If you mean freedom of speech in a legal sense, constitutional sense, let‘s be clear here. This is not a First Amendment issue. Juan Williams has the right, every American citizen, has the right constitutionally to say anything that he wants. All of us do. That‘s what the First Amendment does.


The First Amendment does not guarantee you a paid job as a commentator to say what you want. Your employment as a person paid to speak is at the pleasure of your employer. In this case, it displeased Juan Williams‘ employer, at least one of them, for him to have reassured the FOX News audience he too is afraid of Muslims on airplanes and that‘s not a bigoted thing. That comment did not fly with one of the people who was paying one of the organizations that was paying Mr. Williams to say what he thinks. And so, Juan Williams lost that job.


This is not a First Amendment issue. This is an issue of what your employer is OK with.

"This is an issue of what your employer is OK with."

For sixty years the left has wailed about the horrible injustice of the Hollywood blacklist. Now, thanks to Maddow, we can see that there really was nothing to worry about.




"This is an issue of what your employer is OK with."


That really cuts to the heart of the matter with the Hollywood 10. The studios and their customers decided that they were NOT "OK with" employees who were slavish followers of bloody Joe Stalin. No big deal according to the standard set down by Rachel Maddow.


Or so one might think. As this post points out, Maddow has a somewhat schizoid take on the blacklist seasoned with a shaky grasp of the historical facts.


Maddow does exhibit some serious chops when it comes to side-stepping hard questions while pretending to answer them. She reduces the whole question to a narrow legalistic point. The questions about NPR's liberal bias and lack of ideological diversity get shunted aside. The broader issue of free discussion versus "thought crimes" is never addressed. And then she just marches right into a nice piece of Fox bashing.


The sad thing is, she is supposed to be the reasonable, smart lefty at MSNBC.