Farewell Juan Williams

NPR fired him today, after making comments about being afraid when he saw people who were foremost Muslim in their identity. (What if somebody said the same thing with the word "black" replacing "Muslim"? Or Jewish?)

Hooray!

I disliked him from the moment I first heard him on the air. To be fair, he was trying to fill the shoes vacated by Ray Suarez on Talk of the Nation. I'd spent years glued to that radio show, listening to Ray. Nobody could fill those shoes.

Juan soon proved me right. It wasn't long before I was finding out Juan's opinions on nearly every topic he discussed. Ray didn't do that. He emceed the show as an information sponge, turning me into one as well. Juan was political, and not my kind of political.

Beyond that, he wasn't even very good. He repeatedly interrupted his guests, sidetracking them from finishing their ideas. He undercut his callers. A typical radio talk show host will introduce a caller something like, "Ben, from Minneapolis, you have a question?" Or maybe s/he'll just say, "Ben, from Minneapolis, you're on the air with ...." Too many times I heard Juan say something like, "Ben from Minneapolis wants to ask you ... (fill in the text of Ben's question)." This leaves poor Ben sounding like an idiot repeating the question we all just heard from Juan. I always wondered why nobody ever confronted him with a very sarcastic, "Gee, thanks Juan, you just stole everything I was going to say so why do you even need me?" The more I think about it, the more it seems that whatever the topic seemed to be about, it was really about Juan having the biggest ego in the room.

Eventually he moved on to being a part-time commentator, and somebody else - a series of somebodies - took over the show. (It's much more enjoyable now, most days.) I still found him annoying, always taking his comments with a grain of salt, aware of his political bent in every word.

Then he took on a project covering the Mississippi River, stopping at various places along it and reporting on what/who was there. You'd think that could be neutral and informative, right? He managed to tick me off even more, when he casually tossed out the comment that the Mississippi through Minneapolis was frozen over in October.

Say what? Is he insane? This October the city is still waiting for its first killing frost, and the river rarely freezes all the way across even in the worst winters.

So I stewed. And stewed. And eventually called the MPR comment line, leaving a recording complaining about the egregious misinformation. Within a few more minutes, I was still stewing, so I called the line back and left another message. I invited Mr. Williams, some future October, to join me in a boat I'd take out to the middle of the river, where I'd invite him to leave the boat and walk to shore. Heck, I'd even provide snowshoes if he wanted them.

That felt better for a while, but by now I was getting the hang of both stewing and leaving messages. So I called one last time. I thought I'd warn him about the penguins and polar bears inhabiting the river in October. It seemed only fair. I mean, you'd expect them in such frigid climes, sharing the ice pack with you, right?

To my complete surprise, the station called me back. The woman who called asked me if I were the same Heather Rosa who was Mayor of Shafer. I was. (How did they know?) She asked permission to air some edited version of my comments. Sure, no prob. She also said he was not their favorite on-air personality, and relished the chance to air a critique of what he said. Not only that, they were going to forward a copy on to him.

Cool.

So I listened hard the next day when they aired comments. They just had to give my full name and the fact I was a mayor. (Blush) But they did a fair job of editing the first two messages together so they made sense. But, of course, being MPR, I guess they thought adding the part about the penguins and polar bears (perfectly valid satire if you actually think that river's frozen in October) was just a bit over the top.

Oh well, considering how thoroughly I was identified, it's probably just as well.

Farewell, Juan. FOX deserves you. And they're willing to pay $2 million for the pleasure.