• B&C, Friday, October 22, 2010 12:13 AM

The war of words around Islamaphobia has claimed another victim. NPR fired senior news analyst Juan Williams late Wednesday after remarks he made on Bill O'Reilly's Fox News program. On Monday's "The O'Reilly Factor," O'Reilly asked Williams, a Fox contributor, if he thought the U.S. was facing a "Muslim dilemma." "I mean, look, Bill, I'm not a bigot," said Williams. "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're identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

NPR said in a statement that Williams' comments are "inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR."

On the same day that NPR canned Juan Williams for his comments on Muslims, Fox News handed the veteran journalist a three-year, $2 million contract. "Juan has been a staunch defender of liberal viewpoints since his tenure began at Fox News in 1997," Fox owner Roger Murdoch said in a statement. "He's an honest man whose freedom of speech is protected by Fox News on a daily basis. Williams was let go from NPR shortly after saying he felt "nervous" when seeing Muslims on an airplane.

The Daily Beast reports that Howard Kurtz asks: If Williams had spoken so candidly in a different forum-say, Charlie Rose instead of The O'Reilly Factor-would NPR still have fired him?

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