Juan Williams Was Way to Slow to Recognize the Republican Wave
The problem was President Obama's policies, obviously, Mr. Williams.
The Chicago Tribune famously ran the "Dewey Defeats Truman" headline in 1948.
Juan Williams' initial take on Election Night 2014 was similarly wrongheaded.
Wikipedia:
"Juan Antonio Williams (born April 10, 1954) is a Panamanian-born American journalist and political analyst for Fox News Channel. He also writes for several newspapers including The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal and has been published in magazines such as The Atlantic Monthly and Time. He was a senior news analyst for National Public Radio (NPR) from 1999 until October 2010. At The Washington Post for 23 years, Williams has worked as an editorial writer, op-ed columnist, White House correspondent and national correspondent. He is a 'registered Democrat'.
"Williams is the author of Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965 (1987), a companion to the documentary series of the same name about the African-American Civil Rights Movement...."
After "liberal" National Public Radio repudiated Juan Williams and Fox News gave him a new $2 million three-year contract and an expanded role at their network, it seemed possible that Williams would become a more clear-eyed analyst.
Alas, as voters resoundingly rejected President Obama's policies on Election Day 2014, Williams told viewers that what was afoot was anti-incumbency, not a Republican wave.
WRONG, Mr. Williams.
It was a great night for Republican incumbents and a tremendous Republican wave that even drowned the incumbent Democrat Illinois governor for whom President Obama personally campaigned.
Eventually Williams realized that there was a wave and it was a Republican wave, not an anti-incumbency wave, but Williams was so slow to the real story that he seemed to be engaged in wishful thinking instead of objective analysis.
All of the Republican incumbent United States Senators running for reelection won.
Of the twenty-one United States Senate seats held by Democrats and contested, the Democrats definitely lost seven. two more are likely to go Republican and there probably will be a recount in Virginia, which was supposed to be a easy win for former two-term governor Mark Warner.
In the House of Representative, one seat switched from Republican to Democrat as fourteen seats switched from Democrat to Republican, for a net gain of thirteen for Republicans.
Predictions that Democrats would make significant gains in governorships proved wrong, as Republicans withstood challenges in Wisconsin, Michigan, Florida and Maine as well as won in Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts and Arkansas.
Williams' eyes stayed closed to political reality until even MSNBC read the handwriting on the wall.
Perhaps Williams could have spared himself embarrassment by consulting his son Tony, a Senate page and intern for GOP Senator Strom Thurmond from 1996 to 1997 and a speech writer and legislative correspondent for Republican Senator Norm Coleman from 2004 to 2006, before preaching the false anti-incumbency explanation.
The problem was President Obama's policies, obviously, Mr. Williams.
Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.
Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.
The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.
Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.
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