Juan Williams: Hannity Would Have Been Fired For Doing Amos and Andy Voice Like Stewart

As NewsBusters previously reported, Jon Stewart earlier this month did a segment on "The Daily Show" wherein he impersonated Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain using an Amos and Andy voice.

On Tuesday's "Imus in the Morning," Fox News's Juan Williams said that if Sean Hannity had done that, "He'd be out there barking with the dogs after they threw him out" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

DON IMUS, HOST: When he did, Chris played, he played a Herman Cain clip, and then he affected a, an Amos and Andy voice.

JUAN WILLIAMS, FOX NEWS: Correct.

IMUS: What other white guy in the media, say could Hannity do that?

WILLIAMS: No, he'd be out there barking with the dogs after they threw him out. Come on.

IMUS: Yeah. So I was talking to my friend Mike Lupica, who is also very smart. Do you know him?

WILLIAMS: Not very well, but I like his writing.

IMUS: He’s a smart guy, man. Anyway, he said, "You know, the rules are just different, Don. Hello, can you recognize that?" I said, "Well, yes." But the rules are different. So, they just are.

WILLIAMS: Well, I think it's a fact, and I think that the assumptions that go for conservatives, and you know, it's interesting, Stewart said this, that conservatives are more easily charged with being bigots and racist and intolerant than people on the left. And part of this has to do with history, I suppose. You know, there’s a terrible history in this country in terms of race, and then I think people think back to who supported the Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights, all that stuff.

IMUS: Sure.

WILLIAMS: And of course now the south is solidly Republican and whites are in the Congressional districts that vote heavily Republican. They’ve got blacks in a few smaller districts. It was I think a devilish trade off there. But anyway, all of that now plays into the idea of who can say what and who can take on an Amos and Andy voice in this country, and believe me, Don, it's not anybody on the right. The minute you do it, you are at jeopardy.

Readers are reminded that when Wallace brought this up on "Fox News Sunday," Stewart responded, "Why don't you show -- do you want to show me doing the voices for all the other people that we do? You want to see my New York voice? My Chinese guy voice?"

Actually, the "Chinese guy voice" brings up another double standard, as conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh got into a lot of trouble earlier this year when he did a satirical impersonation of visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao.

How much trouble, you ask?

Well, a Google search of "Rush Limbaugh Chinese" produced 2.5 million results.

I guess that's another thing liberals are allowed to do that conservatives aren't.