Juan Williams Predicts Obama Will Turn on His Liberal Base

Like Imus, Juan Williams enjoys a good Broadway show every now and then, as he did last night when he saw Al Pacino in “The Merchant of Venice.” “It was stunning,” he said of the performance, which reminded the DC-based Williams of the “miracle” that takes place in New York City on a regular basis.
 
And no, he was not referring to the Imus in the Morning program. 
 
Williams, a Fox News contributor, was happy that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was arrested, but worries that he’ll be made into a martyr. “He’s no Daniel Ellsberg,” Williams said, referring to the former U.S. military analyst who, in 1971, famously leaked the so-called Pentagon Papers, documents that showed the Pentagon knew how poorly the war in Vietnam was going, but continued prosecuting it anyway.
 
“It told the American people about the negative conduct of a war, and how it was going downhill at a time when Johnson and his guys were saying, ‘Oh no, we’re doing fine, we’re going to win this thing,’” Williams said.

Assange, by contrast, “is not telling us anything,” Williams continued. “All he’s doing is making it more difficult for people to have honest conversations with each other. He’s making it more difficult, in fact, to save lives.”
 
The New York Times caught some flack for reporting on the hundreds of thousands of cables released by Wikileaks, and Williams was equally critical. “What they’re doing is advertising Wikileaks and Julian Assange to anybody who has a computer and can then tap into all that nonsense, and start reading it and making assumptions,” he said.
 
The most serious bit of information to emerge from the leak, in Williams’s opinion, was that Arab countries have been encouraging the United States to go after Iran, while simultaneously telling citizens they’re standing by their Arab brethren.
 
“They understand the threat posed by Iran, and to me, again, this is an opportunity for Julian Assange and Wikileaks to say, ‘You know what? The U.S. is doing the job here, representing people, standing up for something that’s right in the world,’” Williams said.
 
On the home front, Williams thinks President Obama’s biggest problem is that many of the things he’s doing—compromising with Republicans on tax cuts, caving on the public option for health care reform—are not in line with the way he campaigned. Obama joked yesterday that he had to negotiate on the tax cuts because the Republicans were holding America hostage. But their harsh tactics seem to work.
 
“Democrats had control of the House, and the Senate, and the White House in ’08,” Williams said. “Look at it today.”
 
He predicted a Republican domination over the next two years that will force Obama “to be a totally different kind of President” that turns on his liberal base.
 
A year out from prostate cancer surgery, Williams feels good, and was surprised to learn Imus was battling the same affliction. “Looking at you, you wouldn’t know you had anything,” he said.
 
Look closer, Juan.
 
-Julie Kanfer