FoxNews Showing Their True Selves

I've often wondered why NPR's Juan Williams allows himself to be used by FoxNews as a rational mouthpiece in the talking head moshpits with the likes of Kristol, Barnes, etc. It's always been obvious to me that it's really just an attempt to be able to point to the fact that they're somehow "balanced" because they have a centrist rational voice in the midst of the apologist/neo-con shoutfests, and that there's little professional respect shown toward the man. According to Think Progress (and with video supplied by Crooks and Liars), this became immediately obvious to everyone watch and especially to Mr. Williams this morning as he appeared on Fox News Sunday with Brit Hume.

JUAN WILLIAMS: You can try to minimize it, but the fact that you have Scooter Libby, so involved in justifying going to war, and in the posture of trying to smear a critic of that justification. I think is pretty revealing and pretty damaging to the Bush White House. I think they’re going to have to rebuild a sense of trust with the American People. And that’s why when Brit asked this question, why did he have to lie, he felt the need to lie if he did lie, but by all indications he’s going to say I didn’t remember it quite the way this person remembered and all the like. That’s not very strong in my book, and I think Fitzgerald did a terrific job on Friday. But the reason he felt the need was to make it clear that he was not involved in what really was a conspiracy to defame Joe Wilson.

BRIT HUME: Juan, somebody needs to hose you down.

The top picture is the camera's reaction shot to Williams after Hume's turn-back-the-clock put-down. During Williams' soliloquy, the camera moved to Hume who quickly gave a split-second, knowing "is-this-guy-going-to-go-on-forever" look directly to the camera (that's the second image; I captured that from the C&L WMV video).

To make this anology even more plain, Atrios provides the following image: