Context is everything. And as much as I have always admired Juan Williams over the years, I am surprised at the ill-considered remark he made to Bill O'Reilly.

Williams is an excellent journalist, though since the association with FOX his role at NPR shifted. He used to be more than an analyst. And he has done some singularly important work in his day. Eyes on the Prize is one of his early works.

If you're familiar with his work, you may have heard his many interviews when he published the book Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Black America--and What We Can Do About It expresses many views counter to the "typcial" Jesse Jackson/Congressional Black Caucus kinds of issues and attitudes. He's tired of the status quo politically for black politicians. On FOX, Williams may have expressed an opinion that reflected his own misgivings, and he has done this before, but the context - the Bill O'Reilly context - I think makes it shift from edgy to toxic.

I heard Juan Williams speak on campus here where I work a couple of years ago. He spoke, he didn't read. He is brilliant. I think he disappointed a lot of people this week with what I hope is simply a mis-step, and in this context, I think NPR did push too far, too quickly. I'd listen to him on NPR still, happily, but I'm not going to tune into FOX to find what he's thinking. The questions put to him will be biased over at FOX, and the answers won't be as complete, because the audience isn't expecting it. They wouldn't know what to do with a bona fide intellectual answer if it were given to them.

SRS