Last night NPR’s Ombudsman, Alicia Shepard, finally put up a post commenting on the story that had been raging all day. It might have been up sooner, but she’d spent most of yesterday responding to a wave of negative reaction to the decision:

Thursday was a day like none I’ve experienced since coming to NPR in October 2007. Office phone lines rang non-stop like an alarm bell with no off button. We’ve received more than 8,000 emails, a record with nothing a close second.

NPR’s CEO Vivian Schiller had explained earlier in the day that the decision to fire Williams was about NPR’s vision of journalistic ethics. It wasn’t his comment about Muslims per se, it was about his decision to offer an “opinion” at all.

In Alicia Shepard’s telling, it was partly that and partly because of the understandable outrage of people like Mohamed Khodr, a doctor from Winchester, VA who wrote:

On the Radio, Williams is somewhat of a thoughtful though superficial moderate while on FOX he shows his politically correct submissive Pro Fox bigotry for a few dollars more…NPR must and should take a stand against this bigotry and tell Williams’ he must choose NPR’s code of ethics or be let go to join the racist bigoted fearmongerers of FOX.”

Who is this anonymous doctor?

Well, he turns out to be a far left author and activist who has written, among other things, that Israel is a “rogue terrorist apartheid state that lives by the sword of the IDF.” This is just one line in a rant which describes how “Tribal influence” (meaning the tribes of Israel) dominates Congress. In another online article Mr. Khodr describes our government as the “Three Branches of AIPAC.” He’s disappointed with President Obama as well, saying in a recent letter to a UK paper, “He has conned the world with laudable rhetoric, but in his deeds he is pro-war, pro-business, and pro-Israel, regardless of its actions.”

But as you might guess from his letter to NPR, Mr. Khodr’s roots are in media criticism. He explains that criticism of Israel is heavily restricted in places like the NY Times and the Washington Post because they are “Jewish owned or dominated papers.” How does he know? They never published any of the 500 letters he has sent them denouncing Israel. Mr. Khodr also has a problem with “Don Hewitt’s (Jewish) 60 Minutes on CBS.” And you won’t be surprised to learn that Mr. Khodr has elsewhere noted that Roger Ailes, President of Fox News, is Jewish.

Fortunately, Mr. Khodr seems to have finally found someone in the US media who shares his unique wavelength. Thanks, NPR, for allowing his fresh insights to penetrate the wall of Jews surrounding our media.

NPR highlights the media criticism of this conspiratorial crank to validate it’s decision to fire Juan Williams; yet, just a few paragraphs later, Ms. Shepard claims, without a hint of irony:

NPR offers a broad range of viewpoints on its radio shows and web site…this latest incident with Williams centers around a collision of values: NPR’s values emphasizing fact-based, objective journalism versus the tendency in some parts of the news media, notably Fox News, to promote only one side of the ideological spectrum.

NPR’s ombudsman has unwittingly offered us a perfect example of why no one should trust the editorial judgment of NPR. It’s also a clear example of why taxpayers should no longer be forced to subsidize it. Sarah Palin was right. It’s time for NPR to become National Private Radio.