“We see these beautiful pictures at night from the decks of these two U.S. Navy vessels,” MSNBC’s Brian Williams said this week as he covered the United States missile strikes against Syria live. “I am tempted to quote the great Leonard Cohen, ‘I am guided by the beauty of our weapons.'”
Oh, come on.
The U.S. action against Syria came in retaliation for a deadly chemical weapons attack this week that claimed the lives of roughly 70 civilians, including at least 10 children. American officials determined Syrian President Bashar Assad was responsible for ordering the attack.
Anchoring the event Thursday evening, Williams said of photos released by the Pentagon, “And they are beautiful pictures of fearsome armaments making what is for them a brief flight over this airfield.”
OK, Francis Scott Key.
The missile strike this week marks America’s most direct involvement in Syria’s 6-year-old civil war.
Williams’ cringe-worthy performance Thursday evening is reminiscent of when he covered a deadly assault in Dallas last year that claimed the lives of five police officers.
At the time, he warned viewers repeatedly that he was reporting through a “fog of war,” meaning details and facts were in short supply. Nevertheless, he still suggested the shooters, whose motives authorities have not yet made known, may have acted in retaliation to the recent deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of police officers.
Williams also used the term “end of days” in reference to the chaos in Dallas; he referred to the attacks on the police and their response as “urban warfare” and an “urban nightmare“; he called the situation a “national emergency“; and he repeatedly deployed the term “urban kill zones.”
“It feels like we’re becoming unraveled,” he said somberly.
He also made more than three references to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, who was shot and killed in Dallas.
Williams even said of the assassination that it was the “most violent” day for most Americans, which is odd considering the September 11 attacks, as well as the Columbine, Virginia Tech, Newtown, Pulse nightclub and San Bernardino shootings, all of which occurred after Kennedy’s death.
Musing on the enormity of the biggest issues of the day requires a nimble and artistic mind with a flair for weaving facts with simple, but profound, insights. Williams is adept at none of these things.
If you’re a newsman, and you want to take a 5,000-foot view of a story you’re covering, historical context is not a suggestion. It’s a requirement.
For Williams’ sake, he should stick to reporting the news. When he gets out of his lane, and strays into that weird, gray area of waxing poetic, it does him no favors.
