NPR has fired longtime news analyst Juan Williams, also a commentator on the Fox News Channel, after he told Bill O'Reilly that he gets nervous on an airplane when he sees people in Muslim dress. Williams, 56, responded that too much political correctness can get in the way of reality. "I said, 'I said what I meant to say,'" Williams told Fox News, "which is that it is an honest experience that when I'm in an airport and I see people in Muslim garb who identify themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I do a double take. When he did, he said, she asked him to clarify his comments that he gets "nervous" when he sees Muslims on an airplane. NPR CEO Vivian Schiller said that controversial opinions should not come from NPR reporters or news analysts and that whatever feelings Williams has about Muslims should be between him and "his psychiatrist or his publicist." According to the Associated Press, Schiller appeared at the Atlanta Press Club, where she defended the decision, saying that Williams had violated NPR's guidelines barring its analysts from making personal or controversial statements. Williams said that he received a message from Ellen Weiss, NPR's senior vice president for news, telling him to call her. He said he told Weiss he meant what he said on the O'Reilly show, but that she told him he had made a bigoted statement and crossed a line. "I said, 'You mean I don't even get the chance to come in and we do this eyeball-to-eyeball, person-to-person, have a conversation? "She said, 'there's nothing you can say that will change my mind, this has been decided above me and we're terminating your contract.'"
– Juan Williams says he didn't misspeak when he talked of getting nervous when seeing Muslims in airports, comments that got him fired from NPR. "I said what I meant to say," Williams explained on Fox News today, "which is that it is an honest experience that when I'm in an airport and I see people in Muslim garb who identify themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I do a double take. I have a moment of anxiety or fear given what happened on 9/11. That's just a reality." Williams described how an NPR executive fired him by phone after he told her just that, reports the Huffington Post. "I said, 'I don't even get the chance to come in and we do this eyeball to eyeball, person to person?'" he said. "She said, 'There's nothing you can say that will change my mind, this has been decided above me and we're terminating your contract.'" Separately today, NPR chief Vivian Schiller said Williams should keep his feelings about Muslims between him and "his psychiatrist or his publicist," reports AP. Click here for more.