# What has happened to NPR's Juan Williams? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 24, 2007, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-happened-to-nprs-juan-williams/393503 "2007-02-24T13:21:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2007, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-happened-to-nprs-juan-williams/393503/1 "2007-02-24T13:21:32Z")
Since his rather softball interview with George W. Bush, I have heard nothing from National Public Radio Senior Correspondant Juan Williams. I know he caught grief from the public about the interview being rather pro-Bush. And I caught a reference on FOX news on how liberals were picking on him. Williams is also a FOX employee apparently acting as Bill O’Rilley’s Ed McMahon and appearing on a couple of other programs. Anyway what has happened to the right leaning Williams? I have seen him on FOX but I have not heard him on any of the NPR news programs. Is he on vacation? sabatical? poutting because of negative emails? In trouble with NPR? I was somewhat surprised at the responses to the Bush interview because previous interviews with Rumsdfelt and Chaney had the same softball attitudes. Watch, now that I have commented on it, he will be on NPR constantly for the next two days. ---
**Author:** ![fishbicycle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aeb1de/32.png) [@fishbicycle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fishbicycle)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2007, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-happened-to-nprs-juan-williams/393503/2 "2007-02-24T13:57:46Z")
When they took him off “Talk OF The Nation” a few years ago, he was given the a new title and only comes on the radio occasionally. Juan doesn’t have a daily NPR gig anymore. ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2007, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-happened-to-nprs-juan-williams/393503/3 "2007-02-24T16:45:21Z")
Still he used to make appearances on All Things Considered, Morning Edition and Weekend Edition every couple of days and I haven’t heard him on any of those programs. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Cid\_Viscoso](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/41988e/32.png) [@El\_Cid\_Viscoso](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Cid_Viscoso)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2007, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-happened-to-nprs-juan-williams/393503/4 "2007-02-24T17:14:13Z")
Dan Schorr and Ted Koppel ain’t exactly pushing up daisies, how many senior news analysts does NPR need? 😉 JW has been on a book promotion (_Enough_) tour for the last six months or so. Word on the street is he may be laying low because he’s in the grooming process for a position “on high” in the next Administration. Considering the aforementioned softball interview he might be just the ticket for Press Secretary. ---
**Author:** ![DaddyTimesTwo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f07891/32.png) [@DaddyTimesTwo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DaddyTimesTwo)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2007, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-happened-to-nprs-juan-williams/393503/5 "2007-02-24T17:16:50Z")
I know I’ve heard him recently, certainly in the last week or so. He wrote a book and was on to talk about it, and he’s been part of some group interview I forget about exactly what topic… But I guess I don’t hear much of him as Ii would not have descrbed him as right leaning. I mean, c’mon, he was an NPR regular! ---
**Author:** ![BMax](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bmax/32/4267_2.png) [@BMax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMax)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2007, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-happened-to-nprs-juan-williams/393503/6 "2007-02-25T05:27:54Z")
Yes, he was. So was Mara Liasson. For the last 9 years they have been the token ‘liberals’ on Fox News, where he [gets put in his place by the likes of Brit Hume](http://www.newshounds.us/2005/10/30/brit_hume_insults_juan_williams_during_panel_on_fox_news_sunday.php) while Mike Wallace’s sellout of a son sits and laughs at it. On the subject of Scooter Libby: > [@News Hound](#): > > Williams then says You can try to minimize it all day long, but the fact that you have Libby, a deputy, someone so involved in the creation of a justification of going to war in Iraq trying to smear a critic of that justification is pretty revealing and pretty damaging to the Bush White House and they’re going to have to rebuild a sense of trust with the American people. That’s why when Brit asked, why did he have to lie, he felt the need to lie, if he did lie, but by all indications he’s going to say I didn’t remember it quite the way this person remembered and all the like,. That’s not very strong in my book, and I think Fitzgerald did a terrific job on Friday…(Brit says “Juan…”) But the reason he felt the need was to make it clear that he was not involved in what really was a conspiracy to defame Joe Wilson. > > Brit interrupts and says “Juan, you need to get, someone needs to hose you down.” > > Someone, Kristol or Wallace, laughs in the background. > > Hume went on with some White House talking points about the unfolding of events, points already debunked a million times. [video from Crooks and Liars](http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/10/30.html#a5618) Long Story Short: I think that Fox pays better than NPR and Juan has made his choice. ---
**Author:** ![fishbicycle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aeb1de/32.png) [@fishbicycle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fishbicycle)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2007, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-happened-to-nprs-juan-williams/393503/7 "2007-02-25T05:52:02Z")
Well,. we didn’t call him _Dork Of The Nation_ for nothing. ---
**Author:** ![zagloba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/977dab/32.png) [@zagloba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zagloba)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2007, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-happened-to-nprs-juan-williams/393503/8 "2007-02-25T11:16:13Z")
I admit that I’m being superficial, but Williams’ voice has always grated on me so that I barely want to listen him even when I agree with what he’s saying. I hadn’t been missing him much, but that softball interview did nothing to make me want to hear him more. ---
**Author:** ![Subterraneanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Subterraneanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Subterraneanus)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2007, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-happened-to-nprs-juan-williams/393503/9 "2007-02-25T22:33:59Z")
I stopped listening to _Talk of the Nation_ when Williams replaced Ray Suarez. Suarez was terrific; Williams was a nitwit. Now I know why. ---
**Author:** ![Runs\_With\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/278dde/32.png) [@Runs\_With\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Runs_With_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2007, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-happened-to-nprs-juan-williams/393503/10 "2007-02-26T00:23:17Z")
The less the better. I didn’t realize he was such a conservative sock puppet until I heard Al Franken shred him last summer. (And Juan was _pissed_.) I was absolutely incensed when I learned that NPR was letting him do the Bush interview. No, I don’t mean that I wanted some leftie to go in and harangue the President (well, I do, but, you know…). I lost a lot of respect for NPR on that decision. (Maybe, though, it was a condition of the interview.) ---
**Author:** ![fishbicycle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aeb1de/32.png) [@fishbicycle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fishbicycle)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2007, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-happened-to-nprs-juan-williams/393503/11 "2007-02-26T02:43:46Z")
We used to make bets on how many minutes into the show it’d be before he said something stupid, or mispronounced someone’s name, and how many instances of same there’d be in the show. The guy really has no business being in a place of importance in American broadcasting.