[tater]

His statement was entirely rational. In it he was describing a feeling that was largely irrational. A rational statement about a partially irrational feeling. It's rational to have a 2d look at someone who is Muslim on an airplane in the modern world. Is that thought entirely rational? No, as Williams basically said, it is not. Still, it's just rational enough a worry that any sensible person would have it even if they properly assign it a low order of probability.

So Williams is in trouble for saying the entirely rational (me paraphrasing), "I have this basically irrational fear since 9-11 of Muslims on planes. That doesn't mean that they are terrorists—in fact the vast majority clearly are not, but I think about it."

Rich Lowry has good points:

I know Williams a little from my own commentary gig at Fox, and can say he’s exactly what he appears — a likable, calls-them-as-he-sees-them liberal who, on most things, defends the Obama administration, sometimes passionately, always civilly. If Juan Williams is outside the bounds of polite discourse, then those bounds have collapsed to the point of suffocating constriction.

What Williams said on The O’Reilly Factor is that when he gets on a plane, he’s worried if he sees people “in Muslim garb” who are “identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims.” In this, he was simply acknowledging an anxiety that is felt by millions of Americans who fly.

This may not be entirely rational (the odds of being victimized by terrorism are very small), and Muslim garb is an unlikely marker of a terrorist in a U.S. airport anyway (a terrorist is likelier to try to fit in). But the connection between Muslims and terrorism exists in the public consciousness because Muslim extremists do routinely carry out acts of terror in the name of their religion. This can’t be said of Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Pentecostals, Jews, Quakers, Confucians, Rastafarians, or even worshipers of the Aqua Buddha.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...ind-rich-lowry