It is entertaining to make fun of Williams, who, in my opinion, is a mendacious Democrat meme-bot masquerading as a trusted news anchor. The bias is never explicit, and thus never has to be defended as opinion. It does take an ear attuned to subtle bigotry, such as when he said, in 2012, "Who woke up in the Republican Party one day recently and said, ‘I know what, let’s go after, let’s go after reproductive rights in the United States’? What was that about?"
When Williams talks like this, I see it as in-group signaling. The group he wants to belong to are all elite, East-coast, progressive, believers in the role of the state as protectors against ourselves. Plus he works at NBC, well known for doctinaire social justice. The network that employs known tax cheat Al Sharpton.
NBC's Today Show once ran an edited version of George Zimmerman's 911 call, so that viewers would believe he told dispatchers, "This guy looks like he's up to no good... he looks black." Zimmerman actually told the dispatcher, "This guy looks like he's up to no good. Or he's on drugs or something. It's raining and he's just walking around, looking about." The next comment in the sequence is by the dispatcher, who asks, "OK, and this guy — is he black, white or Hispanic?"
Somebody tell NBC that the narrative should match the record. If it doesn't, it's a lie.
Now Williams has been caught in a lie, the lie of stolen valor. In 2013, he went on the Late Show with David Letterman, and repeated the lie. It was a big thing in 2003 for a reporter to "embed" with infantry soldiers. The embedded journalist got the vicarious thrill of being in combat, without being in any danger. They probably had a squad assigned to Williams to ensure he wouldn't experience the slightest discomfort. But that's not the way Brian Williams remembers.
He told Letterman, "I like to go out on patrol." For what, a juice bar that serves arugula and wheat grass?
"We were north of the invasion. We were the northern-most Americans in Iraq. Two of our four helicopters were hit by ground fire, including the one I was in. We were stuck, four birds in the middle of the desert." The situation was grim, we were surrounded, and we were out of ammunition. At dawn, the commander instructed us to fix bayonets and prepare to charge the enemy fortifications.
"Our late friend Richard Bloom was travelling in a tank across the countryside." Williams was envious of Bloom, who suffered an aneurysm, because he got to embed with a tank crew.
Williams' apology is really a non-apology. An I'm-sorry-you-were-offended non-apology. "I made a mistake in recalling the events of twelve years ago." It was a really, really, really long time ago.
"I want to apologize. I said I was travelling in an aircraft that was hit by RPG fire, I was instead in a following aircraft." The following aircraft was one hour and a hundred klicks behind the stricken warbird.
"It was a bungled attempt by me to thank one special veteran." My intentions were pure, therefore, I am blameless.
The unearned virtue of good intentions. Brian Williams Remembers.
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