Did NPR handle Juan Williams' firing well?

Did NPR handle Juan Williams' firing well? I'm not really sure. Was it was the right thing to do? Definitely!

I first heard Juan Williams after he took over Talk of the Nation. I wasn't a fan, because Ray Suarez had been so great as host of Talk of the Nation and Williams clearly wasn't on that level. He was okay though. He was a good enough journalist and I remember being okay with him. But eventually he got the gig with Fox "news" and was very different after that. The few times I saw him on Fox, he played the "liberal." Of course, how could you not given that he was paired with radical right-wingers like Bill Kristol (who's Weekly Standard led us into the Iraq war). I cringed watching Williams argue about politics, rather than report the news, or even discuss it with the objective approach of NPR. It just wasn't becoming of an NPR journalist.

Worse though, his presence changed on NPR as well. He started blurring the line between journalist and commentator on NPR. But here Williams was throwing out periodic right-wing rants. Regardless of direction, left or right, these rants are just not NPR quality. Conservatives love to call NPR liberal, but lack of right-wing bias does not mean liberal. Liberals get plenty upset and NPR as well. Just the other day I was shocked that Neil Conan and Ken Rudin had a tea party congressional candidate on Talk of the Nation and they just let him rant without any questioning at all, much less tough questioning. NPR can be frustrating to both sides at times, but they are the most objective and quality news network out there. You want liberal, go to MSNBC or Democracy Now. You want conservative, go to Fox "news" or anywhere up the a.m. radio dial from NPR. NPR is a great place to get THE NEWS. (If you're one of those people that think facts are liberal--and I know people that do, then I may have to concede that NPR has a liberal bias)

Williams had moved too far away from being an objective news journalist, into being a commentator. Fox "news" may not have any problems with that, but its unbecoming of NPR. NPR should have ended the relationship much sooner. Maybe they didn't handle it well, but they had to do it!