I’m getting guff for discounting (in this piece) the possibility that Graham might have been fired over insubordination rather than political correctness and outside pressure. One reader notes that the station, WMAL, has issued this statement:

Asked to comment on Graham’s accusations, WMAL President/GM Chris Berry told R&R [Radio & Records], “Typically we don’t comment on personnel matters, but given the misstatements being communicated, I want to set the record straight. Some of Michael’s statements about Islam went over the line – and this isn’t the first time that he has been reprimanded for insensitive language and comments. I asked Michael for an on-air acknowledgement that some of his remarks were overly broad and inexplicably he refused. Michael has also tried to position this by saying that we were pressured into taking disciplinary action against him. For the record, we make our decisions independent of external pressures or third parties. We will not permit an employee to willfully violate our policies or disregard management direction.”

Thus armed, my critic writes: “Why should Michael Graham be allowed to violate his companies polices and disregard their direction? That’s what you’re suggesting, correct?” No, not correct. I most certainly am not saying that an employee is at liberty to violate the trust of his employer. If it is so that Graham’s employer told him not to use its airwaves in a particular way, and Graham felt he could not live within those parameters, the honorable thing would have been to quit, not defy management on the air.

BUT, the fact that WMAL issues a statement about this matter doesn’t make the statement true in all of its particulars (any more than Graham’s statements have to be taken as true at face value). It has to be evaluated against the record. I’m skeptical, to say the least, that the station was as offended as it now claims to be.

If WMAL had been so outraged that it thought Graham’s remarks were a firing offense – and especially if the station was convinced this had to be the last straw after repeated insubordinations – why did it let him go back on the air for a week? Why did it wait three more weeks after that to fire him? If what the station is saying here is true, he could have been fired at the next commercial break after his comments, and certainly should have been canned by the next day.

That’s not what happened here. What happened here is CAIR agitated, and agitated, and agitated, and the station finally fired Graham.

As I’ve said, I think Graham should have found a way – and this really isn’t that hard to do – to apologize for his tone without retracting his main point, which was within the bounds of reasonable argument. But the WMAL is justifiably taking heat for caving in to a campaign by an interest group that is notorious for this sort of stuff, and its statement strikes me as damage control.