Williams’s response

Worth watching is Juan Williams’s response on the O’Reilly program to NPR’s firing of him. He’s not taking it lightly. He’s angry.

However, while I’m recommending the segment, I have to say that I can’t stand watching Williams on Fox. Most everybody shouts on cable news channels rather than speaks, which is bad enough, but Williams shouts louder than most.

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Al H. writes:

While Williams finally starts to notice the subject of liberal intolerance, he still doesn’t seem to grasp the big picture: why speaking some simple truths about Islam is unacceptable speech. He isn’t the only one. I just read Victor Hanson’s column on this and he headlines it “Our Sneering Liberal Culture in a Nutshell” then doesn’t mention what’s wrong with our liberal culture. It’s all about a double standard, that FOX News is more tolerant, free speech and the NAACP and he even throws in George Soros for good measure. Not one word on why NPR and Vivian Schiller think what he said is unacceptable, not one word on why our liberal culture believes what he said is unacceptable.

Seems to me like everyone is missing the point.

LA replies:

As I have shown before, the prolific Victor Hanson is a one man destruction of conservative intellect. In his endless series of columns attacking and psychoanalyzing liberals, he portrays liberalism as a form of personal or cultural obnoxiousness rather than as a set of beliefs. He has zero conceptual grasp of liberalism. The more he writes about the subject, the more confusion he sows.

Karl D. writes:

I think you are confusing shouting with projecting. As someone who has worked in theatre as well as film and TV I know that it is just the nature of the beast. Another reason for example is that in a studio setting like the O’Reilly show the cameras are a decent distance from the speaker. Psychologically the camera is the person to whom you are speaking, so one will tend unwittingly to raise one’s voice even though one is wired for sound. And as a host, the pressure alone can cause one to raise the volume. There are those however who are naturally low key on camera. Charles Krauthammer and Brit Hume are two that come to mind. But most classes in broadcasting will tell you to project.

LA replies:

I don’t agree with your normalization of shouting on broadcast political programs. Such shouting never existed prior to the last decade or so. It is part of the carnival barker atmosphere Roger Ailes has deliberately created to build audience, along with all the blondie “commentators” with their blouses open to their solar plexus.

Jim C. writes:

The reason Williams is shouting is that, as guest host for O’Reilly, he’s attempting—badly—to be O’Reillyesque. I like Williams, but he’s just so predictable, and I never learn a damn thing from him. Fox needs more pundits like Dick Morris and Monica Crowley, who manage to be original thinkers at least part of the time. I’d never hire Williams if I were managing Fox—he’s an embarrassment.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 24, 2010 10:14 AM | Send