After years of claiming to have come under fire while helicoptering into Iraq in 2003, Brian Williams, the top NBC news reader, admitted to Stars and Stripes last week that the attack had happened to a different helicopter, not the one he was in. In what was perhaps the most gnomic utterance involving a news anchor since Dan Rather and “Kenneth, what is the frequency?” Williams explained to the Pentagon newspaper, “I would not have chosen to make this mistake.” He then elaborated: “I don’t know what screwed up in my mind that caused me to conflate one aircraft with another.”
The blogger Ace of Spades was one of the first to react to this gobsmacking story, and we’re not sure his response to Williams has been improved upon:
Let me help you out here, Brian. You conflated one aircraft—one you were in—with another aircraft—one you were not in—not due to a “mistake” but due to an age-old reportorial practice called lying to advance an agenda.
The agenda here was dressing up a soft, delicate little boy into the sort of iron-stubbled man who looks like he belongs on a battlefield.
So you lied. You claimed you were on one of the helicopters that took fire; no human being could ever confuse “Me” or “Not Me.”
Steven Wright makes just that joke—“The other day I was . . . wait, no, that was someone else.”
See, Brian, it’s funny because we know that confusion about “Me” versus “Not Me” is not possible, except in the insane.
So you lied, and over the years you’ve lied and lied again.
Trust us, they lied.
The agenda here was dressing up a soft, delicate little boy into the sort of iron-stubbled man who looks like he belongs on a battlefield.
So you lied. You claimed you were on one of the helicopters that took fire; no human being could ever confuse “Me” or “Not Me.”
Steven Wright makes just that joke—“The other day I was . . . wait, no, that was someone else.”
See, Brian, it’s funny because we know that confusion about “Me” versus “Not Me” is not possible, except in the insane.
So you lied, and over the years you’ve lied and lied again.
Trust us, they lied.
