Election 2010: Teabaggin' the Ds & Rs

[Penske 2.0]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Because he has already been fired, so it's really besides the point now to talk about all of the things NPR could have considered before it acted.



Ex ante, sure, but since they've fired him now it's far more instructive to talk about the actual facts ex post. I'm not aware of a shred of evidence that he was fired for his age or race.

I actually understand that people who are fired for good reasons can bring baseless claims against their former employers to extract a little money on their way out the door. That's ordinarily the sort of thing that Penske would complain about. In the way that he abandons those principles to take Williams' side against NPR, you can tell that Penske is truly a conservative at heart.



From the story I saw, it's clear that NPR's management has had issues with Williams' appearances elsewhere for a while, and believe that he has been doing things inconsistent with its standards. For that reason, I think it's silly to think that they overreacted quickly to this one incident. I think they've been considering their position for a while.



I wasn't aware that listeners felt that way. I just thought he was insipid. But so is Cokie Roberts, so what can you do?



I think NPR saw a fundamental tension between the sorts of commentary he gave at Fox and the role they expected him to play at NPR. It wasn't long ago that they asked him to stop identifying himself with his NPR affiliation when he appeared at Fox. At the time I thought that was silly -- it was accurate, and if they didn't like it I thought they should be focus on what he said on their airwaves.

And now they have.

Translation: I still don't get it.