It was just over a month ago that NPR “Day to Day” host Madeleine Brand showed a startling lack of preparation when a Kurdish interviewee blamed the US in part for providing Saddam Hussein with the tools he needed to execute the Anfal genocide campaign.
On today’s show, Brand and guest co-host Mike Pesca started off with a discussion of last week’s FOX News appearance by President Bill Clinton. They were joined by senior correspondent Juan Williams to provide commentary on Clinton’s interview with Chris Wallace.
Just one problem. Williams is not only a correspondent for NPR, he’s also an employee of FOX News, where he’s been a regular panelist and anchor for nearly a decade. Nowhere in the “Day to Day” segment was the fact that Williams was commenting on an employer (FOX News) or a co-worker (Wallace) mentioned.
This is how Williams was introduced, just after a short piece of Clinton’s first response to Wallace was played.
MIKE PESCA: Joining us now to talk about the week in politics is NPR senior correspondent and regular “Day to Day” contributor Juan Williams. Hi, Juan.
JUAN WILLIAMS: Hi, Mike. Hi, Madeleine.
MADELEINE BRAND: Hi, Juan.
This was how Williams characterized Clinton’s answer to Wallace in his first response to Pesca’s question about the incident (emphasis added).
WILLIAMS: Well, uh, the inside discussion, Mike, all week among the political class in Washington has been whether or not this was a set-up; and not a set-up by FOX News and the conservatives, the right wingers, and those who have been laying in wait for Clinton, but the question is whether Clinton himself was making a strategic move.
Yes, according to Williams it’s Bill Clinton’s fault that Williams’s co-worker Chris Wallace was stupid enough to ask Clinton a question he was able to answer forcefully and at great length. Clinton put a gun to Roger Ailes’s head and forced him to put an interview with Clinton on the air on his network.
Williams said Clinton “silenced” the left wing of the party and rallied it around him and therefore Hillary Clinton. I’m not too sure about that one. Williams, Brand, and Pesca discussed the comments entirely in terms of how they would affect the 2006 and 2008 elections, without addressing any of the facts Clinton asserted in his answer to Wallace.
Here’s how the end of the segment went. Still no mention of Williams’s other employer.
BRAND: NPR senior correspondent Juan Williams. Thanks, Juan.
Thanks, indeedy.