By Paul Greenberg
Jewish World Review
I usually tune in to NPR for a few minutes on the way to work every day — just to catch up on the party line before switching to the classical music station for the sake of my mental health. And there are few better listening posts in the latte belt than "The Diane Rehm Show."
Her guest this morning was Juan Williams. You may have heard — and seen — the gentleman before. He's on NPR and Fox News, too. He's the nice, usually soft-spoken person of color (specifically, café con leche) with the little moustache. On Fox, his role is to provide a little balance for right-wing blowhards. A very little.
It turns out that Juan Williams has just written a book (hasn't everybody who's a guest on "The Diane Rehm Show"?) about race in America. So I expected the usual nice, soft-spoken platitudes about how we need more government programs, less personal responsibility and a whole lot more white guilt. You know the drill. Well, I was amazed. And so impressed I finished listening to the whole thing right there in the parking lot. The comprehensive title of Mr. Williams' book, it turns out, is "Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America — and What We Can Do About It."
Goodness. What happened? Did Mr. Williams suddenly wake up, or has he felt like this all along but kept quiet about it? He sounded like Thomas Sowell or Walter Williams or most of the preachers I listen to when I can't get to sleep in the middle of the night (and learn a lot from). 'Cause he was preachin' that old-time religion in his own soft-spoken way.
Why, the man sounds just like . . . Bill Cosby!
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