Why Brian Williams Lied About His Combat Experience

"Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea."

Samuel Johnson said that. By the way, h/t to Ace for bringing that quote to mind.

By now, we all know that Brian Williams lied about being in a helicopter that was shot down during the Iraq war. Here's a video of Williams lying about the event, in detail, to David Letterman. I have been thinking about why he lied about this event. People defending Williams have tossed out this "memory is complicated" idea, in an attempt to let him off the hook. For instance, people are saying things like:

"He was in the helicopter in the sense that we are all in the helicopter. We are the ones who misremember. Misremember, conflate."

What? We are all in the helicopter? What is that even supposed to mean? Memory isn't complicated. You're either in a helicopter that was shot down, or you were in another helicopter an hour behind. It's not that complicated. Next time you get caught in a lie, try out the ol' "memory is complicated" line and let me know how that goes for you.

Look, people. sometimes, the simplest answer is the right answer. Here, I think the simple answer is correct: Brian Williams wanted to portray himself as as badass. So he made up a story.

Williams has been a journalist - a news reader - for his entire career. He's never been a soldier. He's never been one of the rough men standing ready in the night to visit violence upon people. However, he's reported on them, so he's been around them a lot.

I can relate to this. I'm a lawyer, but that makes me kind of the odd-ball in my family and extended family. Every single adult male in my family before me was in the military, and was deployed overseas to combat. Everyone.

My dad was in the Army as a doctor in an 93rd Evac Unit in the first Gulf war. My uncle was in the Army and was a tank commander in the first Gulf war, in addition to other deployments. My other uncle flew helicopters in Vietnam. My late grandfather was special forces in WWII, fighting at Anzio, among other places. My brother in law flew helicopters in the second gulf war. I can keep going back to the Civil War, but I think you get the idea.

Me? I'm just a lawyer. I'm not saying that anyone makes me feel bad about it (they don't), but sometimes I feel guilty about it on my own. Yeah, I know that being a lawyer is an honorable profession, and it's kind of interesting, but it's not exactly the same thing as being deployed to a combat area. I'm kind of the opposite of Lt. Dan.

So I'm kind of in the same boat as Williams. We're both guys who have been around military guys to a great extent, but we're not in the club. We're never going to be in the club. We don't have the bond that those men have, and we're never going to have it. Not that there's anything wrong with being a lawyer or a news reader; both are perfectly legitimate careers.

Here's what happened. I think Williams did a lot of reporting on military issues, and he got to know military men. I think he truly admires them. I think Williams admired these military men that he was around so much, he wanted to be part of their group so badly, that he made up this story so he could fit in - so he could be one of the guys. Who doesn't want to be one of the guys?

Essentially, I think Brian Williams lied for one of the oldest and most common reasons of all: He lied so people would think he's cool. I think deep down, he felt uncool standing next to these military men. Their actions held up a mirror to him, and he looked at his own job of reading the news and felt like he didn't measure up.

He certainly doesn't measure up now. Those who are dishonorable certainly aren't part of the club.

CNN Has Decided the Murderous Islamic Terrorists Might Have a Point

The inspiration for killing people - a damn cartoon.

Go read this NYT piece from Ross Douthat about the terrorist attack today.  I'll give you a little taste, for fair use, but go read the whole thing.

If a large enough group of someones is willing to kill you for saying something, then it’s something that almost certainly needs to be said, because otherwise the violent have veto power over liberal civilization, and when that scenario obtains it isn’t really a liberal civilization any more

Amen! The man gets it. The purpose of the attack today was to have us Westerners engage in self-censorship. That's the goal of these terrorists. Should we give in to people who are going to engage in violence to get what they want? NO!

Or...you could go the other way, and let the murderous terrorist-bastards win by adopting the policy that you shouldn't show cartoons of "The Prophet", like CNN has decided to do.

Either way, really.

American Journalist Executed - What Is Our Response?

In the wake of an American journalist being publicly executed by ISIS, I thought of this:

What will be the response from the United States today when one of our citizens is publicly slaughtered by a foreign power that has wrought so much death and misery on others?

What should our response be?

Journalist Thought Foam Earplugs Were Rubber Bullets

Can you identify this?

In what is now exhibit number 8,465,786,251 in our continuing saga of how journalists know absolutely nothing about anything remotely related to firearms, an intrepid reporter covering the Ferguson riots thought some foam earplugs were rubber bullets.

Is it asking too much for a journalist to have some basic competence in firearm knowledge? Am I reaching for the stars here?

"I didn't care if people stole the newspaper. I just wanted them to read it."

That was Brad Warthen's best line from his interview on the radio last night.

He was discussing what motivated him while at The State, and he had this line to make the point that he didn't care if his opinions pleased the newspaper's advertisers or not. He didn't write things or take positions to try and sell newspapers. He just wanted to be read. (I can relate to that in a way.)

I thought that was the best line of the program.

Editorial Fail - Unicorn Guns

I'm not sure what the problem is with journalists/editors and guns. It seems like every time a journalist tries to write a story involving guns, they get facts wrong. It's almost like they go out of their way to look like uninformed, sloppy knuckle-heads.

Case in point: Some Fox News reporter named Perry Chiaramonte is writing a piece about the Foot Hood Shooting and trial. Pretty simple, right?

Actually, no. Here's the line in the piece describing the firearm used.

Three witnesses took the stand after opening arguments, including the manager of the store Guns Galore, where Hasan had purchased the Glock 27 model 5.7 handgun used in the attack.

Wait, what? A "Glock 27 model 5.7 handgun"? What the hell is that? A Glock model 27 is this:

See? It says "Glock" on the side. That's the name of the manufacturer, like Coca-Cola, or BMW, or Apple. The number 27 refers to the model number, like it's a Coca-Cola Classic, or a BMW 325i, or an Apple iMac. It's a basic, subcompact, semiautomatic .40 caliber handgun.

An FN Five-Seven is an entirely different thing. Entirely different. This is an FN Five-Seven:

Notice anything different? Well, for starters, other than being a handgun, it's totally damn different. Different manufactuer, different caliber, different size, shape and...you get the idea.

Here's what really gets me: there's no such thing as a "Glock 27 model 5.7 handgun". It only exists where unicorns dance around with magic elves. It's not a thing.

Where is the editor on this screw-up? Look, I understand if you're a newspaper editor who knows nothing about guns. But shouldn't you know that and maybe run it buy a guy in the office who can alert you to the fact that you're making up imaginary things?

And people wonder why newspapers are failing.

Abortion Clinics are Now "Choice Providers"

I have some breaking news for all you wordsmiths out there. Abortion clinics are now to be referred to as "Choice Providers". Wow, talk about some Orwellian doublespeak.

Who would advocate for this wording? An abortion advocate?

Actually no. Good guess, though. Give up?

A television news anchor wants to rename abortion clinics as "choice providers". You know, the guy who's supposed to just present facts in an objective way?

Hey, maybe I'll name one of my pistols "Choice Provider".

Euphemism: the substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression for one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant; also : the expression so substituted.

Since I like to come up with lists, and since we're renaming abortion clinics, I have a proposed list of some other names we could give to abortion clinics:

1. Gosnell Chapels
2. Murderholes
3. Infanticide by Dismemberment 'R Us
4. Kid Killers Express
5.  Suction Centers

 I guess the problem is that there's really no way to put a happy face on killing a person. It's going to kind of be ugly. So I get why they don't want to talk about it.

h/t to the Zip.

Journalist Broke The Law By Getting a Story?

The WaPo is reporting that Fox News Reporter James Rosen has been classified as a "aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator" by the DOJ for reporting on what I assume was classified information leaked to him.

The court documents don’t name Rosen, but his identity was confirmed by several officials, and he is the author of the article at the center of the investigation. Rosen and a spokeswoman for Fox News did not return phone and e-mail messages seeking comment. Reyes wrote that there was evidence Rosen had broken the law, “at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator.” That fact distinguishes his case from the probe of the AP, in which the news organization is not the likely target.

Wow. Talk about a chilling effect. If the government is now taking the position that a journalist has criminal liability for reporting on classified information, that's a new level of scary. If this is a legitimate position by the DOJ, then that's going to stop a whole lot of reporting. The really scary thing is that the government just has to make an accusation - not a case. All this happens without the journalist knowing.

 

This cannot be right.

DC Police Investigating David Gregory

Evil high-capacity magazines!

PROTIP: If you're advocating for banning something nationwide, you probably shouldn't posses that same item in a jurisdiction where it's currently banned.

Irony, how does it work?

Steve Spurrier Fires Back at Ron Morris

Every Thursday night during football season, Steve Spurrier has a radio-call in show that gives him a forum to talk about the week’s upcoming football game, talk about how the football team is doing, and generally answer questions from fans. It’s not usually very newsworthy, as the usual comments about how the football team is doing aren’t exactly “news”.

Spurrier changed that last night.

During the show, Coach Spurrier went off on a little soliloquy about winners and losers. He specifically mentioned that there was a certain journalist in Columbia that was a “loser” and an “enemy”. Coach Spurrier never mentioned the journalist by name, but everyone knows that he was referring to Ron Morris of The State newspaper. At one point, Coach Spurrier quoted Attila the Hun. Here's what Coach Spurrier said that I want to get into:

"If Mike McGee (former USC athletics director), when he hired me, he would have said 'Steve, we're gonna give you a chance to run the football program at South Carolina, you hire your coaches, do your thing, but there's one thing you gotta put up with, the local media will try to trash you, they'll try to ruin your reputation, they'll try to portray you as a mean, evil, self-serving person.' And, I would have said, 'well you give that job to somebody else, I'll wait for the North Carolina job to open.' which was opening the next year. But, I'm glad it worked out."

"That is not part of being the head coach at any university, is to be the target of the newspaper to give a guy who obviously has an ax to grind. I'm not that mad at the guy. The guy is who he is, we all know who he is."

"But we need to make some changes and I really believe between President Pastides and the guy that runs the newspaper, that some good changes are coming forth and I encourage the people that canceled their subscriptions last year, when some of this crap started last year, to give the newspaper and our university a chance. I believe that our city is going to be better off."

Mr. Morris and Coach Spurrier have been in a feud of sorts ever since Mr. Morris wrote a column stating that Coach Spurrier “poached” Bruce Ellington from the basketball team and convinced him to play football. Coach Spurrier took exception to that characterization, and feels that he has been accused of dishonest conduct. Given the connotation of the word "poaching", I can't say that I blame him.

I thought the feud had reached the high point last season when Coach Spurrier actually refused to continue with a press conference while Mr. Morris was still in the room. Last night may have marked the beginning of the end of the feud. I'm all for having a strong, vibrant newspaper - but that's not what we have right now.

I don’t know what this all means exactly, but it sounds like the University is backing up Coach Spurrier on this issue. I know that Mr. Morris is in the business of writing controversial columns that generate page-views and circulation, but there’s a difference between writing an opinion and misstating facts that impugn someone’s character. Also, simply trolling the football program to get internet traffic isn’t exactly a great business model, and it should be beneath the dignity of our newspaper. It’s bush-league.

It’s fine for the newspaper to criticize the coach when he deserves it, give him praise when he deserves it, and offer insight into the sports program. I would welcome that. But that’s not what we have. Our local newspaper seems to perpetually criticize the football program, and doesn’t offer any great insight.

Heck, I don’t even go to The State for sports coverage anymore. It’s just not that good. In any event, there should be some sort of shake-up with either how USC Football is covered by The State. Maybe the end result could be some good journalism.

Facts Matter

Here's an e-mail exchange I had with a dear friend of mine today. He lives up North, but he can tie a bow tie.

Friend: Oh, Mitt,why are you sinking yourself with your stupid comments?

Me: It’s the facts – not the daily news cycles that determine elections.

Friend: HAHA, do you really believe that?

I thought about that. Do I really believe that? Am I being naive? There has been so much about "fact-checking" in this election. I really hadn't even heard of a "fact check" style of article until this election season. Now, fact-checkers are ubiquitous. After every major debate, speech, or campaign commercial, there are legions of fact checkers out there to tell us what is a fact and what is not. There are even fact-checkers for the fact checkers. But, Quis custodiet ipsos custodes, right?

So...do facts even matter? Is all this fact-checking an exercise in futility? Do I really believe that people will look at "Facts" when they vote this year? I guess the answer is: I hope so.

Here's what I think...

Joe Paterno Fired; CNN asks the Tough Questions

Paterno is out immediately, not at the end of the season. This is a move that had to be made. Many things are more important than college football - failure to report sexual abuse is one of them. If you disagree, then your priorities are all out of whack.

Kudos to CNN for getting the most knowledgeable reporters on the story to ask the tough questions that everyone wants answers to:

Bless her heart.
[HT: EDSBS for the video link]