In modern times, famous people get a free pass on their crimes by pretending it was a “mistake” or possible an “error in judgement.” A mistake is when you put the wrong gas in your car because you were not paying attention. An error in judgement is when you hire the woman because she is hot over the more qualified fat guy. Telling people you had a near death experience in Iraq, when nothing of the sort happened, is none of those things.
NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams admitted Wednesday he was not aboard a helicopter hit and forced down by RPG fire during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a false claim that has been repeated by the network for years.
Williams repeated the claim Friday during NBC’s coverage of a public tribute at a New York Rangers hockey game for a retired soldier that had provided ground security for the grounded helicopters, a game to which Williams accompanied him. In an interview with Stars and Stripes, he said he had misremembered the events and was sorry.
The admission came after crew members on the 159th Aviation Regiment’s Chinook that was hit by two rockets and small arms fire told Stars and Stripes that the NBC anchor was nowhere near that aircraft or two other Chinooks flying in the formation that took fire. Williams arrived in the area about an hour later on another helicopter after the other three had made an emergency landing, the crew members said.
“I would not have chosen to make this mistake,” Williams said. “I don’t know what screwed up in my mind that caused me to conflate one aircraft with another.”
What the bleep does that mean? Are we to believe he was forced to lie about what happened? Is there some new medical malady that compels people to spin tales of daring that never happened?
Williams told his Nightly News audience that the erroneous claim was part of a “bungled attempt” to thank soldiers who helped protect him in Iraq in 2003. “I made a mistake in recalling the events of 12 years ago,” Williams said. “I want to apologize.”
Williams made the claim about the incident while presenting NBC coverage of the tribute to the retired command sergeant major at the Rangers game Friday. Fans gave the soldier a standing ovation.
“The story actually started with a terrible moment a dozen years back during the invasion of Iraq when the helicopter we were traveling in was forced down after being hit by an RPG,” Williams said on the broadcast. “Our traveling NBC News team was rescued, surrounded and kept alive by an armor mechanized platoon from the U.S. Army 3rd Infantry.”
Williams and his camera crew were actually aboard a Chinook in a formation that was about an hour behind the three helicopters that came under fire, according to crew member interviews.
This is not about getting a fact wrong or misremembering a name or place. He made up this whopper so he could get adulation he did not earn for deeds he did not do. In other words, like every other coward, he wants glories for courage he has never been able to muster. That’s a sin in itself, but to then profit from it by dragging others into the lie (his support crew, co-workers, etc) is disqualifying.
A lot of what’s gone wrong traces back to the near total lack of shame by our elites. They simply refuse to uphold their end of the bargain. Williams should have admitted the lie, apologized to all concerned and then resigned. In a better age, his superiors would have left him alone in his office with a bottle of whiskey and a revolver. Instead, he offers a fake apology and carries on as if nothing happened.
I’m Sure many people have had near death experiences in cars,climbing ladders etc. you not only never forget them but don’t talk about them much. Usually they are sobering events
The fish rots from the head down. Witness President Prevaricator. How many lies have fallen easily from his lips? Yet the Leftist media pretends otherwise. Like the tree in the forest, if no one ever calls you on it, is it still a lie? We live in duplicitous times.
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He must be a pretty important guy to be protected by an “armor mechanized platoon” commanded by a Captain.
we live in fake times. Politicians are lauded for not doing anything but pretending to care, and the ones who laud them are given awards by their own kind and praised by people like them who cannot — or will not — talk about truth.
It is not so much that there are lies and maintained lies, abhorrent though such a policy is, but the lies are interwoven with untruths and pretensions in a deliberate attempt to deny reality and face facts.
The whole business of the media is, it would seem, to appear ‘saintly’ in front of their colleagues. If you say the ‘right things’ you are approved, and approved leads to more approval among the small circle of humanity they move among. I once worked with journalists and I can say that they were, almost entirely, people without either intelligence or morals. They were in it for the money and the pats on the back from their mates, though one journalist did tell me she thought all her colleagues on the editorial floor were really failed novelists.
Politics was never about truth, and the compliant, boot-licking media stopped being about truth and reality some time ago. The only aspect of this that is surprising is that we are still surprised that a journalist should lie and distort and fail to remember correctly.
Fareed Zakaria being caught serially plagiarizing and he still has his job. That dirt-bag Blumenthal from Connecticut who claimed combat experience then remembered he “mis-spoke”. How about fauxcahontis/liarwatha Warren. These lefties don’t have any real accomplishments so they manufacture them out of whole cloth, and the LIV lap it up. Sigh.
Other than the fact itself, the most important part of this story is that it took 12 years to uncover. If something as easily verifiable as this took that long, how much else is there?
Shame that it took real troops to shame him into confessing. However, I doubt if the lie will be a detriment to his career. It will be ignored – and he will continue to pull down $10 mil from the network.
Wouldn’t want to look in his mirror…
Tell us more about the fake sniper
He will probably be the debate moderator when Mrs. Clinton defends lying about being under fire in Sarajevo. Nothing like a bunch of amoral liberals and aging dirtbag hippies writing revisionist memoirs for their disgraceful lives. “Jug” Burkett chronicles them (including Tom Harkin, Dan Rather and others) in his book “Stolen Valor” It exposes all the poseurs wearing fake medals to get public acclaim.
There’s never any consequences with these people.
Thanks. I never knew that. Man, it is something that bugs me for some reason. I once called out a fake sniper at a dinner party. It was upsetting to everyone, but I just could not stand there and listen to the guy tell whoppers.
Check out the stock character “Il Capitano” as pointed out by neo at
http://neoneocon.com/2015/02/05/so-whats-up-with-brian-williams/