"Mr. Williams? A Ms. Sherrod on Line 2."

As I'm sure you've heard, National Pubic Radio has fired commentator Juan Williams for comments he made on Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor" that they felt were "inconsistent with its editorial standards and practices." What did Williams say that was so beyond the pale for NPR?

This.

Look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.

Later in that same segment, Williams also took O'Reilly to task for his statement on "The View" where he painted Muslims as terrorists, saying Christians shouldn't be blamed for Timothy McVeigh.

First off, I'm not a fan of Mr. Williams' politics by any stretch of the imagination. But I will stand behind him on his firing because, in truth, his "offense" was taken out of context. When combined with his statement about Christians not being responsible for McVeigh (an odd comparison to make, but that's a blog post for another time), Williams doesn't come off as bigoted as NPR seems to think he is.

It's not unlike the Shirley Sherrod situation where her comments were taken out of context and used as justification for her to lose her job with the Department of Agriculture. Personally, I think Sherrod should have lost her job for reasons other than the comments she made at a meeting of the NAACP, but that's neither here nor there. The Juan Williams situation bears an eerie resemblance to the Shirley Sherrod situation in one important way.

It was white Leftists doing the firing in both cases.

Seems our lily white friends on the Left have no problem dumping a person of color when they become "radioactive," even when the comments in question are taken out of context and whipped up into a frothy glass of self-righteous indignation. But Leftists never take someone's words out of context and creates straw man arguments out of them, right? I mean, aside from Media Matters...and the Huffington Post...and DailyKos...and DemocraticUnderground...and MoveOn.org...okay, you get the picture.

As of this posting, our good friends at the NAACP have yet to weigh in on the Williams firing, but I'm sure they're working on their statement as we speak. Unless, of course, they're too busy whipping up more racist lies about the TEA Parties. Then, their response might be delayed, but I'm sure it will be lightning fast when they do it.

While I'm sure Mr. Williams isn't holding his breath waiting for the NAACP's statement, plenty of people from both sides of the aisle are upset with NPR's rash action, as we should be. Williams was fired for nothing more than expressing an honest personal opinion within the context of a larger conversation, a conversation I might add that the Left doesn't want. NPR's actions reek of the same reflexive desperation that Shirley Sherrod faced from the Department of Agriculture, and I see the same result coming. The white Leftists will eventually cave and give Williams his job back in the hopes that everything will be forgiven and forgotten.

Let's hope Juan Williams forgives, but never forgets.