In the midst of a career spent covering and consuming news, it has become painfully apparent to me that I am presently too much a part of the news, due to my actions.
As Managing Editor of NBC Nightly News, I have decided to take myself off of my daily broadcast for the next several days, and Lester Holt has kindly agreed to sit in for me to allow us to adequately deal with this issue. Upon my return, I will continue my career-long effort to be worthy of the trust of those who place their trust in us.
You know the worst part of this is that Sarah Palin will TOTALLY think that she made this happen.
I don't know why he said what he said, but I feel bad for Williams. I really do.
The Washington Post had this interesting article about this and how he is not the first to get caught in this situation. They actually wrote about the science behind this sort of memory flub.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/02/05/the-science-behind-brian-williams-mortifying-memory-flub/
What better way to take over the media than to get people like Brian fired and get a kocksucker in there! Like Saree! Ho boy! http://bit.ly/1xOb3cW
DeleteOf course she will think it was because of her facebook post!
ReplyDeleteI mean lets forget that about every MEDIA outlet crucified this guy for enhancing his story.
Will Sarah Palin do the same when she is exposed as a birthing fraud? Will she do the same when Pimp Daddy Todd Palin is exposed?
ReplyDeleteShe can't. She doesn't have anything important to take a leave of absence from. She is a quitter with nothing to quit.
DeleteHey, Bill-O claimed to have been in comat a few years ago. When called on it he tried to claim that covering the war in the Falklands was being in combat.
ReplyDeleteSarah Palin is like a thin skin scavenging vulture flying circles in the sky. Then scavenger Sarah Palin sees an already injured prey on the ground and swoops to pick whatever meat is left.
ReplyDeleteI liken her to a hyena...She screeches like one.
Delete"it has become painfully apparent to me that I am presently too much a part of the news, due to my actions" -Brian Williams
ReplyDeleteThat sentence is something you won't hear from Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin is like the other narcissists, "Any press is good press".
Sarah Palin just wants to see her name or pictures in the media to justify her meager existence.
This seems to me to be a non-apology apology! Where is "I am sorry, I will not let this happen again"? One of the troops said that he was there when the helicopter landed, Williams got out and started COMBING his hair!! He must have really been shaken up. Sorry, until these so called news reporters apologize for not telling the TRUTH about EVERYTHING they are supposed to report on, I will not watch. Williams belongs on Faux news. I have lost all respect for him.
DeleteThis thing has been blown so epically out of proportion, especially when you consider how often Fox News is caught lying.
ReplyDeleteThere is a difference, Faux is well known for lying. Williams was supposed to be a respected newscaster. Maybe now his cover is pulled aside, he can tell about all the lies he has repeated about the President, all the right wing propaganda.
DeleteFormer Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin dashed the hopes of her many supporters when she announced Saturday evening her decision not to run for president in 2016.
ReplyDeletePalin broke the news in a letter to supporters, she wrote, “After much prayer and serious consideration, I have decided that I will not be accepting the 2016 GOP nomination for President of the United States.”
“As always, my family comes first and obviously Todd and I put great consideration into family life before making this decision,” Palin wrote. “When we serve, we devote ourselves to God, family and country. My decision maintains this order.”
Palin said that she would not run as a third-party candidate and instead will concentrate on coordinating “strategies to assist in replacing the president.
[This hasn't happened yet but (hopefully) we should be expecting an announcement like this in the near future after she milks her followers. Sarah just needs to copy this announcement on her SarahPac letterhead and she will be good to go. You know and I know President Obama can't run again for the 2016 presidency but don't tell Sarah. Bless her heart, we will let Sarah believe she got President Obama kicked out of office. ]
"Bless her heart, we will let Sarah believe she got President Obama kicked out of office."
DeleteBest comment. Fits well with this post.
But also too I believe Sarah will believe she had something to do with Obama being "too scared" to run for president again.
There is NOTHING godly about $arah Palin.
DeleteFormer Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin dashed the hopes of her many supporters when she announced Saturday evening her decision not to run for president in 2016.
ReplyDeletePalin broke the news in a letter to supporters, she wrote, “After much prayer and serious consideration, I have decided that I will not be accepting the 2016 GOP nomination for President of the United States.”
“As always, my family comes first and obviously Todd and I put great consideration into family life before making this decision,” Palin wrote. “When we serve, we devote ourselves to God, family and country. My decision maintains this order.”
Palin said that she would not run as a third-party candidate and instead will concentrate on coordinating “strategies to assist in replacing the president.
[This hasn't happened yet but (hopefully) we should be expecting an announcement like this in the near future after she milks her followers. Sarah just needs to copy this announcement on her SarahPac letterhead and she will be good to go. You know and I know President Obama can't run again for the 2016 presidency but don't tell Sarah. Bless her heart, we will let Sarah believe she got President Obama kicked out of office. ]
Rush Limpdick has told so many lies so often, yet he doesn't have .01% of the integrity of Brian Williams.
ReplyDeleteThat was my first thought too, Gryphen. All the credit, none of the blame.
ReplyDeleteO/T but some good articles on Hillary's plans, Jesse.
ReplyDeleteOfficial or not, Hillary Clinton builds a massive 2016 team-in-waiting
Hillary Rodham Clinton, who won’t yet say whether she is running for president, is assembling a massive campaign team-in-waiting that outstrips anything on a Republican side that remains factionalized and focused on knocking off one another.
At this point, without so much as an announcement, she has settled on — at the least — a campaign chairman, a campaign manager, a chief strategist and lead pollster, another pollster, a lead media adviser, a communication director, a deputy communications director, a focus group director and a communications strategist.
She is also closing in on a New York City campaign headquarters and a date to make all of this official.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/official-or-not-hillary-clintons-2016-campaign-is-already-well-underway/2015/02/06/a78fc358-ac8d-11e4-ad71-7b9eba0f87d6_story.html
Clinton builds a different campaign for 2016. Will she be different, too?
There are clear indications, however, that she is determined to put together a campaign organization that is markedly different from the one she had in 2008, designed to avoid both the tactical and strategic mistakes that contributed to her undoing against Barack Obama and the debilitating infighting that plagued the inner circle of what became for a time a dysfunctional campaign.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/clinton-builds-a-different-campaign-for-2016-will-she-be-different-too/2015/02/07/280e5aac-aee7-11e4-ad71-7b9eba0f87d6_story.html
Hillary Clinton Is Building Her Democratic Army As The GOP’s Worst Nightmare Comes True
Hillary Clinton hasn’t even announced her 2016 run yet but she is already staffed up with huge Democratic talent, some of which is coming to her straight from the Obama White House. Planning to delay campaigning until late summer, the former Secretary of State, Senator, and First Lady has already amassed a Dream Team, pulling from Obama’s team to round out her already solid support.
http://www.politicususa.com/2015/02/07/hillary-clintons-dream-team-republican-nightmare.html
There’s no use pretending that Hillary Clinton isn’t already a presidential candidate
Deletehttp://www.salon.com/2015/02/06/sorry_lanny_davis_theres_no_use_pretending_that_hillary_clinton_isnt_already_a_presidential_candidate/
“Daddy is just great but…he lies.”
ReplyDeletehttp://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/02/07/father-daughter-ad-ends-with-a-heart-wrenching-twist/
Damn, that really got me!
DeleteMe too!
DeleteRonald Reagan’s wartime lies:
ReplyDeleteReagan spent WW II in Hollywood. He told the Israeli prime minister he was at the liberation of Nazi death camps
...There’s another figure who merits mention in this discussion, one whose serial blurring of lines between fiction and reality was a mainstay of his public career. That figure, of course, was Ronald Reagan.
Reagan’s fibs were manifold. They included his campaign-trail tale of a “Chicago welfare queen” with 80 aliases, 30 addresses, and 12 Social Security cards, whom he alleged had claimed “over $150,000″ in government benefits. The woman whom Reagan made infamous was convicted of using only two aliases, used to collect $8,000.
Once in office, Reagan’s deception in the Iran-Contra scandal briefly threatened his presidency. First, Reagan flatly denied wrongdoing, publicly declaring, “We did not — repeat, did not — trade weapons or anything else for hostages, nor will we.” Months later, when subsequent revelations rendered that assertion untenable, Reagan delivered an Oval Office address in which he tried to reconcile his public claims with the factual record. “A few months ago, I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages,” Reagan said. “My heart and my best intentions still tell me that’s true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.”
But Reagan’s fabrications also included whoppers about conflict zones reminiscent of those put forth by Williams and Clinton. During Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s November 1983 visit to the U.S., Reagan told Shamir that during his service in the U.S. Army film corps, he and fellow members of his unit personally shot footage of the Nazis’ concentration camps as they were liberated. Reagan would tell this story again to others, including Holocaust survivor Simon Wiesenthal. But Reagan was never present at the camps’ liberation. Instead, he spent the war in Culver City, California, where he processed footage from the liberation of the camps.
Reagan biographer Edmund Morris proposed an especially charitable explanation for Reagan’s misleading Holocaust claim, arguing that the images “so burned into his brain that later in life — quite understandably — he imagined he had been there at Ohrdruf and Buchenwald.”
http://www.salon.com/2015/02/07/ronald_reagans_wartime_lies_the_president_had_quite_a_brian_williams_problem/
Saint Ronnnie lied? Say it ain't so. Well, it IS the republican way. Dirty tricks and lying are the only way they can win. Can't depend on BRAINS.
DeleteI saw Alaska and thought of you G.
ReplyDeleteSaturday marks the start of the annual Yukon Quest International Sled Dog race, a 10-day journey from Whitehorse, Yukon, to Fairbanks, Alaska, 1,000 miles away.
It's not so much a race as a test of survival.
This year, veteran musher Lance Mackey is back on the trail. He's considered the Michael Jordan of the dog mushing world — an athlete who fought his way to the top.
http://www.npr.org/2015/02/07/383795193/facing-1-000-miles-of-frigid-winds-with-loyal-dogs-and-willpower
Anonymous 5:47 PM
ReplyDeleteSarah Palin just wants to see her name or pictures in the media to justify her meager existence.
- - -
Uh oh. The Ol' Carcass better dig out more photos from 2008, cause the more she exposes her current face on any media, the more her face is beginning to look like it is morphing into a man's face.
There is nothing womanly about her long face, chiseled jaw, snarling mouth, glaring eyes and gaunt features.
Well, she always wanted to be queen of something. Now she's becoming a Drag Queen.
I'm not so sure about the Queen part, but $he certainly is a drag! ;)
DeleteJJ
This whole thing is just fucking ridiculous! Fox lies every single day, the right wing GOP are chuck full of lying assholes, pundits lie, every president in history has lied. Exaggerations, embellishments, are commonplace in the news. Palin lies incessantly, congress critters lie, EVERY HUMAN BEING ON THE PLANET has lied. No exception. It's the degree and frequency and what they lie about that matters. I challenge ANYONE who is reading this to say that they haven't lied in their lives, and I'd be sure they were lying about that. That these people who are piling on who live in glass houses are playing with fire when they throw the stones. It's a media frenzy that is overblown. The part that no one seems to pay attention to is that he fessed up, he admitted it, he even offered it of his own volition. That is honorable in and of itself, why isn't anymore saying this? It makes me sick to my stomach that he is being ravaged this way when there are so many out there in the media who make their goddamn livings lying. Every one of them. They lie outright, they twist the facts, they exaggerate the truth, they split hairs..all of it is lying. Why is he getting so hammered?
ReplyDeleteWhy? Probably because of all the reporters, he was the one most believed. He was always the top ratings earner. He was respected, and he blew it. What else has he lied about, I wonder? He has lost all credibility. He confessed when there was no way out of it. Too many people who know the truth came forward. I did not see one single "sorry" in that non-apology apology.
Delete7:43 Nice rip! I agree. This is beyond ridiculous. This country is such a drama queen. But then what can we expect from a country founded on lie after lie after lie? The lying has never stopped. Doubt it ever will.
DeleteIt is humorous as hell to see the biggest liars pop out to call the liar a liar. God damn, it's no wonder the whole world laughs at us.
Apparently an obsessive fixation for President Obama's penis is a prerequisite for all tea party women....c4p talking about Judge Jeanine:
ReplyDeleteTheresaAK JanuarysRose8
11 minutes ago
I really admire her..I imagined her actually in a courtroom with obama.....Bailiff, whack his pee pee.
0 Reply
I totally agree with you. This may be the new distraction, not just from Palin but from the Republicans. Time will tell.
ReplyDeleteI don't feel sorry for him. The memory lapse explanation seems less likely than the fact that he simply has a huge ego.
ReplyDeleteMore and more these days, every reporter--even meteorologists-- want the aura of celebrity. It's not enough for them to report stories. They desire to inject themselves as significant elements in the story. We see it again and again.
I read a piece by Maureen Dowd in which she pointed out a couple of things I hadn't consciously noticed, i.e., in how many reports David Muir is personally featured, often with his shirt unbuttoned. Previously I had been annoyed only by his hyperactive delivery and overuse of meaningless hand gestures, but now I see that Dowd's observation--remarked upon by Muir's own coworkers--is spot on.
Personally, I like meteorologist Jim Cantore, but he also has fallen victim to the cult of personality. (And the cult of weatherman body-building started by his predecessor, Joe Bastardi.) Cantore's not entirely to blame. Now that there's a whole channel devoted to weather, they are over-reaching to find stories, naming every storm system of any kind, in a way that used to be reserved for hurricanes. But Cantore's reactions to thunder snow leave no doubt he does way too much grandstanding for the cameras.
Williams's pretensions can be compared to Stolen Valor, as he tried to depict himself as coming under fire, and the people who were really present have put him in his place.
I'm smiling, no, smirking over his latest faux pas. Years ago, when Clinton was in office, we heard him make two uncalled for nasty remarks about the President and vowed never to listen to him again. And we haven't. (Smirking)
DeleteI don't know for sure what really happened, I don't know for sure what anyone ever said about what really happened, but I do know that Sarah Palin doesn't give a shit what really happened as long as she can spin her bullshit.
ReplyDeleteI'm not passing any judgement on Williams until I know the facts. The Right-wing is doing all it can to obscure the facts- perhaps the truth doesn't serve them.
I have always like Brian Williams and I hope he returns to the nightly news. I think he will learn a lesson from this experience.
ReplyDeleteI saw the original broadcast of his experience and he did a superb job, praising the military and everyone involved for a very difficult job. Maybe he embellished over the years, but in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter to me.
Bring Back Brian!
Palin may well be convinced that her stirring indictment* of Williams is what has brought him down.
ReplyDeleteHowever, there will not be a single news item anywhere claiming that Williams took leave after reading Palin's facebook. Nor will any mainstream media anywhere quote from Palin's facebook reasons why he should resign.
She is completely irrelevant to the national discussion on any serious topic whatsoever except as a buffoon and clown providing comedy relief. No one seeks out her opinion on serious issues and no one is asking for her opinion on Williams.
She is just the mean and stupid little yap-yap dog with its hair in its beady eyes, snarling and ankle-biting around the fringes of the crowd.
*And by stirring indictment, I mean foaming at the mouth demented raging lying rant.
People get all upset when a media-type gets caught in a lie, but we never hear a peep out of them when politicians do it. Why is that?
ReplyDeleteAs for media-types being embedded in combat zones, I seriously doubt that many -- or even any -- of them have ever been seriously in danger. I have always taken that type of scenario with a grain of salt because I expect them to embellish their situations -- that's more dramatic and that's what sells the news. I do get hugely annoyed when they overdo it though, as Geraldo Rivera was notorious for.
As for Brian, I like him, always have and I don't expect that to change. He's no worse than any of the entire corps of media-types, and he's more believable than most politicians.
There are far more serious things to get upset about than one man doing a bit of personal embellishment.
If Brian Williams told 59% more lies, he'd qualify for employment at Fox 'news'.
ReplyDeleteThe overblown reaction to Williams' embellished story is a tempest in a teapot, and they're spilling tea everywhere. I do feel sorry for Williams. His recount of his time in Iraq are HIS. He has not lied about the NEWS, unless he is news himself, and he shouldn't be (as he points out in his letter to the network). His fabrication has been compared to Hillary Clinton's own embellished tale. However, they are very different: Clinton was running for President, Williams is not running for anything. Clinton was trying to use her "combat" experience to bolster up her foreign policy/defense credentials. Williams' story is self-serving and no one else was harmed in the telling. People embellish their resumes every day - this was an embarrassing embellishment of his personal history and he should not lose his job over it. He may, however, be forced out by the rest of the media harping and harping about this (probably because it takes any scrutiny off them, and they can report on this "human interest" story, instead of the hard stories, like Ukraine, ISIL, global climate change, etc.). I wish I could shout from the top of the Empire State Building " Give it up, guys! Get on with your real work." (Can you tell this whole thing infuriates me?)
ReplyDelete