You do not really need to shed a tear for Juan Williams, unless you weep droplets of gold, and them you can pile them on top of the three-year $2 million contract Williams received from Fox News after NPR cut ties with him. To sum up: Monday night, Williams said on The O’Reilly Factor that he gets nervous when he sees passengers in “Muslim garb” getting on a plane with him. NPR cut his contract, giving muddled reasons: that giving out opinions hurt his credibility as a news analyst, but also, indirectly, that Williams’ specific opinion was beyond the pale.

I don’t weep for Williams, but beyond this story we’ve also lately seen Rick Sanchez, Octavia Nasr, Helen Thomas, Dr. Laura and others hastily dismissed or their careers ended for saying things that have offended people—like, beyond the media world, Shirley Sherrod. Are all these cases the same? Absolutely not, not even close—except that they’re an example of an increasingly prevalent one-strike policy on offending people that is doing no one any good.