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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Military / Brian Williams Hates America

Brian Williams Hates America

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Apparently the scandal of the day is that last week, Brian Williams was at a Rangers game with a retired CSM, and the Rangers and fans honored the CSM for his service. Apparently, fifteen years ago, Williams was embedded with the unit in Iraq, and one of the choppers was hit by an rpg and went down. The CSM was one of the soldiers on the BFV that defended the helicopters for several days, and he and Williams kept in touch, so Williams invited him to the game so they could reunite. All in all, a nice gesture to a guy who spent 23 years in the military and earned three bronze stars.

Here’s where it goes south. Williams apparently misremembered/lied/whatever, and stated in his tribute that he was on the helicopter that got hit. Some of the guys on the chopper that actually was hit took umbrage, and Williams apologized and said he misremembered. This is now being treated as if Williams was caught in a General’s uniform in a New Jersey mall pretending to be a medal of honor winner.

Let me start by saying a couple things. I don’t care for Williams or his delivery. I find him at least partially responsible for the abomination that is Girls, as his spawn is one of the stars.

Having said that, I find this to be a pretty big nothing-burger. He wasn’t trying to personally profit from the situation, he was just trying to do something nice for the CSM. He even initially accurately reported what happened, and only now seems to have screwed up the narrative. And he immediately apologized when he realized he was wrong, on facebook in the thread where he was confronted, and again on tv tonight:

Personally, I’m sympathetic to the notion that he intended no ill will. First, he was doing this to honor a guy who Williams felt defended him for days when Williams was undoubtedly scared. Second, he’s not trying to claim he was some sort of brave soldier, he’s thanking all the guys who defended him. Third, Brian Williams is a civilian with no training whatsoever. He was probably all hopped up on adrenaline just being on the helicopter, let alone in the desert during a war, and then to be told that someone had been hit, etc. I can see how years later it would all run together. Hell, a simple combat landing in a plane would make many civilians think they had been hit by a nuke. I have no practical experience, but I imagine it would be just as dramatic in a helicopter.

Finally, and most importantly, memories fade and get muddled. About 90% of the time when Shawn and I are reminiscing about things we did together while overseas, one of us will say to the other “I remember that happening, but don’t remember if I was there.”“Were you there for that?”

“I think so. I mean, I remember it happening.”

“Or was that me and Geoff?”

“Again, I don’t remember. I remember it happening, but I don’t remember if I was there or there right after.”

It is what it is. Big fish and all that. That’s how memory works, that’s why eyewitness testimony is a shitty thing to use as the sole basis for a conviction, and that’s why old soldiers talk about the same stories over and over again- to retain the collective memory when the individual memory fails, to have a few laughs, and to remember what it was like being young and dumb.

The internet experts are all atwitter on twitter, though. Folks saying things like “I’m pretty sure I’d know if someone aimed at me” or “I know I would remember being shot at,” to which my response is a pretty emphatic “No, you wouldn’t.” If you’re in a helicopter, I’m not sure how the hell you would know if someone was aiming at you or shooting at you unless saw tracers or you got hit, and even then, there are a bazillion stories (A10 pilots are full of them) about aircraft getting back to base and the crew finding holes while the pilot was oblivious to the fact he/she was under fire. Here’s our own Sooner with his own story:

Like I said, I don’t care for Williams, but I find this a big nothing. He wasn’t trying to promote himself or steal someone’s valor, he was trying to do a solid to a guy he thinks saved his ass. Sooner, who has a lot more experience than I do, will hopefully chime in.

And no, liberals, this is not the same as Hillary’s sniper fire bullshit, in which she completely made up stuff to embellish herself. Here, Williams just misspoke (misremembered/whatever blows your trumpet) in a tribute to an American soldier.

BTW- if I read more and he was lying repeatedly about this, I’ll change my opinion accordingly.

Reader Interactions

91Comments

  1. 1.

    BruceFromOhio

    About 90% of the time when Shawn and I are reminiscing about things we did together while overseas, one of us will say to the other “I remember that happening, but don’t remember if I was there.”

    Opens an i, doesn’t close an i. OK, better now.

    Memory is subjective. Period.

  4. 4.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I wish to associate myself with the remarks made by billion

    Billmon @ billmon1 · 16m 16 minutes ago
    If Brian Williams apologizes 4 being part of MSM claque that helped push us into war of lies in 2003, let me know. Otherwise, not interested

  7. 7.

    Mike in NC

    Brian Williams, Tom Brokaw, Diane Sawyer, Barbara Walters, et al in the MSM are all documented millionaire Republicans who you really couldn’t trust further than you could throw those goddamn fuckers. Google is your friend.

  9. 9.

    Jeffrey Burr

    I don’t care for Williams or his delivery. I find him at least partially responsible for the abomination that is Girls, as his spawn is one of the stars.

    I see what you did there, though I don’t think you know that you did it.

  10. 10.

    Birthmarker

    Brian Williams equals liberal media, all anyone needs to know. Plus we must have an outrage of the day. Bonus points-changes conversation away from stupid vax comments made by conservatives. That’s why I don’t listen to most of the nonsense.

  16. 16.

    aimai

    Actually, although I haven’t paid any attention to the Hillary kerfuffle, I think it probably is exactly the same thing. Hell, I’ve never been any where near combat and I can’t remember anything that happened in College–because I don’t see any of those people anymore, and have only the vaguest memories of stuff that happened over the last 20 years when I was mostly child rearing. My children are always having to remind me of stuff–and it can be big stuff, or big to them.

    People just don’t have perfectly clear memories of lots of stuff. Your memories are mostly formed through talking about them and rehashing them afterwards and it is at exactly that point that inaccuracies can creep in.

  20. 20.

    Downpuppy

    If you want to blame him for Girls, you have to give credit for the wildest, gayest show in the history of TeeVee – Peter Pan Live.

  21. 21.

    Bitter Scribe

    This guy says he was in a chopper that was hit and went down, only he wasn’t, and that’s supposed to be some sort of honest mistake?

    Sorry, I’m not buying it. That sort of thing would be a lot clearer in the memory than sniper fire.

  23. 23.

    Dr. McCoy

    And since I’m here: OT
    There’s another reason why the official rate is misleading. Say you’re an out-of-work engineer or healthcare worker or construction worker or retail manager: If you perform a minimum of one hour of work in a week and are paid at least $20 — maybe someone pays you to mow their lawn — you’re not officially counted as unemployed in the much-reported 5.6%. Few Americans know this.

  25. 25.

    Morzer

    @Bitter Scribe:

    I could see it being an honest mistake if he was planning to speak in a few moments time about how some soldiers on the same mission were shot down and his mind skipped a track and blended the two thoughts.

  26. 26.

    Tree With Water

    I worked for a supervisor who finished his tour and flew out of Vietnam for the final time on chopper with a colonel (or maybe a general, I forget which he said). According to him, for some reason the officer wanted a bird’s eye view of the terrain and ordered the pilot to fly low. Which was a bad idea, which everyone knew but the officer. He told me he even dared address that fact to the officer, but was ignored. Sure enough, the officer got hit (whether he was killed, I can’t recall). Whether true or not, I can’t say. But he was a guy not prone to bullshit about anything at all, at least that I can remember.

  27. 27.

    SiubhanDuinne

    that’s why old soldiers talk about the same stories over and over again- to retain the collective memory when the individual memory fails, to have a few laughs, and to remember what it was like being young and dumb.

    Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
    But he’ll remember, with advantages,
    What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
    Familiar in his mouth as household words […]
    Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb’red.

  31. 31.

    lol

    @Dr. McCoy:

    If you’re underemployed, you’re counted in the U-6. Of course, the U-6 has gone down just as much as the U-3 so I’m not sure what your point is.

  32. 32.

    jharp

    “I remember that happening, but don’t remember if I was there.”

    In my 50’s and often think that when reminiscing with friends.

    Or “I remember that story but did it happen to you or to me”?

  33. 33.

    lamh36

    @Aaron S. Veenstra: I was just reading about that bit about “numerous times”. I guess the question would be was he still repeating the story the same way once corrected?

    I suspect, he may have been telling it so long he began to believe it or just kept telling it anyway.

  34. 34.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I’ve always had a slightly sleazy vibe from Brian Williams. To me, there’s something just a bit untrustworthy about these carefully-coiffed, evenly-tanned, gleamingly-toothed anchors. I prefer rumpled pros, like Murrow, Huntley, and Cronkite.

    (Lawn, get off, belt, onions, etc.)

  35. 35.

    srv

    This blog was such a warzone ten years ago, I remember being in that chopper and thought I was Saddam Hussein.

  40. 40.

    jl

    What does this nonsense have to do with the petpix Cole should be posting?

    He thinks his show of mercy towards Williams will spare him from the wrath of the BJ hordes? Ha ha ha.

  43. 43.

    Morzer

    @srv:

    No, no. That was Tywin Lannister and eemom. And they did make out. That was the night that saw the begetting of Hodor in Portland.

  44. 44.

    RSA

    That’s how memory works

    I think we’re seeing the Loftus effect, or the misinformation effect, in action. From wikipedia: “The misinformation effect happens when our recall of episodic memories becomes less accurate because of post-event information.”

  46. 46.

    taylormattd

    Isn’t the problem that he has been repeating and has allowed the story to be repeated for a decade?

  47. 47.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @taylormattd: My understanding is that NBC has using the story to tout Williams. If the story is in fact a story and not factual, it’s a problem.

  48. 48.

    sharl

    I don’t think it changes JGC’s basic point, but there is this:

    John Cook ‏@johnjcook

    Brian Williams’ apology says he was in a helo following the one that took fire. Stars & Stripes, citing crews, says he was 1.5 hours behind

  50. 50.

    Violet

    My favorite memory about Brian Williams and the Iraq War was the night it started. Tom Brokaw threw to him in Iraq and Williams could hardly talk because he had the hiccups. NBC was doing their Dramatic War Graphics and Dramatic Music and Brian Williams opens with the hiccups. It was awesome.

  51. 51.

    danielx

    About 90% of the time when Shawn and I are reminiscing about things we did together while overseas, one of us will say to the other “I remember that happening, but don’t remember if I was there.”

    Like that’s unusual. There have been a few incidents in my life where I’ve had that experience, like remembering the details of a Johnny Winter show at this 5/8s mile dirt track in Jeffersonville IN. Kind of like I was a disembodied observer/recorder: did I really see that or am I dreaming that I saw it?

  55. 55.

    Another Holocene Human

    @lol: The fact is for all the conspiracy theories by bearish investors during the credit crunch about the “real” government statistics, there is no fucking WAY unemployment reached the levels or truly the crisis that it did during the Great Depression, especially among white males. Plus we have fucking government programs now that keep families in place unlike during the 20s and 30s where we relied on private charity, which failed, and men took to the roads and rails by the thousands chasing rumors of job openings, many of them kicked out of their homes for failure to provide, others quite voluntarily hunting for work (and for their dignity). Only after years of crisis did the government start a jobs program which took the edge off the pain but was cobbled before it could really lick the problem by a bunch of bankster scum who raised the price of money to create the “recession within the Depression”. Thank goodness that did not happen under Barack Obama. Go, Yellen.

    Ahem.

  56. 56.

    Violet

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Billmon @ billmon1 · 16m 16 minutes ago
    If Brian Williams apologizes 4 being part of MSM claque that helped push us into war of lies in 2003, let me know. Otherwise, not interested

    @Mike in NC:

    Brian Williams, Tom Brokaw, Diane Sawyer, Barbara Walters, et al in the MSM are all documented millionaire Republicans who you really couldn’t trust further than you could throw those goddamn fuckers. Google is your friend.

    There will never be an apology. David Gregory in 2008:

    Defending “the media” and their performance in the run-up to the Iraq war, NBC News chief White House correspondent David Gregory asserted during the May 28 edition of MSNBC’s Hardball, “I think the questions were asked. I think we pushed. I think we prodded. I think we challenged the president. I think not only those of us in the White House press corps did that, but others in the rest of the landscape of the media did that.” He then said, “If there wasn’t a debate in this country, then maybe the American people should think about, why not? Where was Congress? Where was the House? Where was the Senate?”

    They’ll never accept any responsibility or apologize for any of it.

  57. 57.

    Another Holocene Human

    And this is despite the fact that there was massive and organized resistance in the country and the city to the foreclosures during the 20s and 30s and even support from judges in the form of cramdowns, whereas this time the banks pretty much got their way on everything so they could lord over a kingdom of unoccupied, slowly rotting properties while children live out of cars. Which just goes to show that even during the unemployment peak of Occupy Wall Street things never got as desperate and therefore as radical as they did during Saul Alinsky and Superman’s heyday. (Superman was kicking evil landlord ass within the first six issues, maybe the first issue, I don’t recall.)

  58. 58.

    Tom Q

    I’ve always thought Brian Williams gives off a level of smarm unusual even for TV newspeople, so that may play into my reaction. But I heard his apology on the Nightly News tonight, and it felt to me he wrapped himself in the flag in a way that would have embarrassed Ollie North. “I was only trying to honor a veteran…and I just LOOOVE veterans…have I mentioned I how much I revere veterans?” — so much dust thrown, it was close to a non-apology.

    I have to say, the Hillary thing was the first analogy I thought of, and I don’t see why you’d let one slide and nail the other.

  59. 59.

    Another Holocene Human

    @jharp: I can’t remember what happened 5 years ago. Then again, I’ve got memory problems due to chronic-trauma-induced-anxiety-disorder-but-not-meeting-threshold-of-PTSD. Woo. Go me.

  60. 60.

    Another Holocene Human

    @SiubhanDuinne: I think he was on Daily Show once and seemed really stiff and phony at the same time. But I don’t really trust my judgment. I used to think Brokaw and Jennings were interchangeable but the latter turned out to be a liberal* and the former some grandpa-humping rightwing patri-nut with a nasty streak as wide as Rockefeller Plaza.

    *-maple-syrup guzzling liberal, IIRC and RIP

  61. 61.

    Violet

    @Another Holocene Human: Brian Williams has been on The Daily Show multiple times. I think he and Jon Stewart are friends. When TDS first moved into their new studio they had the Giant Head of Brian Williams on their backdrop for awhile. It was really weird. Jon Stewart will joke about sending complaint mail to “Brian Williams, NBC News, 30 Rockefeller Center…”

  63. 63.

    Mike G

    Williams is pretty loose with accuracy for a supposed “newsman”, but it’s not like he claimed to have filmed Nazi death camps when he never left Hollywood, which would be considered heroic and revered by Republicans —

    In November 1983, Reagan told Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir during a White House visit that while serving in the U. S. Army film corps, his unit had shot footage of the Nazi concentration camps as they were liberated. He repeated the same tale to Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal and other witnesses. Reagan had indeed served in the Army and worked on morale-boosting movies for the War Department. But he had done so without ever leaving Hollywood for the entire duration of the war.

    http://fair.org/blog/2010/05/20/at-the-nyt-some-pols-mislead-others-imagine/

  64. 64.

    max

    And no, liberals, this is not the same as Hillary’s sniper fire bullshit, in which she completely made up stuff to embellish herself. Here, Williams just misspoke (misremembered/whatever blows your trumpet) in a tribute to an American soldier.

    I expect most of our high-muckety mucks embellish their stories to smooth the campaign/media bio. This particular offense sounds trivial…

    The internet experts are all atwitter on twitter, though.

    …as most of what gets twitter truly bent out of shape is trivial.

    max
    [‘Truly, something to not care about.’]

  65. 65.

    Mandalay

    @Morzer:

    That rather eliminates the “I misspoke” defense.

    TBF his defense is that he was simply mistaken because he conflated events rather than that he misspoke.

    But this admission from Williams seems problematic:

    “In fact, I spent much of the weekend thinking I’d gone crazy. I feel terrible about making this mistake, especially since I found my OWN WRITING about the incident from back in ’08, and I was indeed on the Chinook behind the bird that took the RPG in the tail housing,” Williams wrote.

    So even if he genuinely misremembered the incident originally, when he wrote what he thought really happened in 2008 he had a golden opportunity to also publicly set the record straight, but he chose to stay silent.

  67. 67.

    Karen in GA

    Didn’t Brian Williams only get the anchor gig because NBC could easily market him to “NASCAR dads” (remember them?). IIRC, they — and he — couldn’t shut up about his love of NASCAR.

    They tried to make him appealing to morons as if the moron seal of approval was a good thing. It made me hate him right away.

  69. 69.

    AxelFoley

    Man, fuck that noise. It’s one thing if you’re a combat veteran who’s been in many a fire fight or warzone. I could see a person not remembering all the details.

    But if you’re a reporter who usually has a desk job, there is NO fucking way you’d “misremember” getting shot down in a helicopter.

    Hell, I’ve been in 3 car accidents in my life and I remember every detail of each one. I’d never forget getting shot down in a helicopter if it happened to me.

  70. 70.

    eemom

    @Morzer:

    It’s getting a tad dreary, that every time I have ten seconds to see what’s going on around here this is what I find. Perhaps you should consider acquiring a life, or something.

  71. 71.

    Morzer

    @eemom:

    Perhaps you, my sweetest, should cancel your subscription and write a sternly worded letter of complaint to the editor. That’ll bring those wicked vitriolic jackals to their senses right quick.

  72. 72.

    Jewelbomb

    Using this as an excuse to get in a gratuitous dig at Girlsis lame (and probably a bit sexist).

  73. 73.

    xenos

    @lol: the text is cribbed from some foolishness om the Gallup website. The point is that the Obama administration is lying about the recovery. I guess the metrics used since the Reagan administration are fraudulent with a democrat (sic) president.

  74. 74.

    Digital Amish

    Is it safe to venture that a large portion of the fanners of the outrage flames are ‘patriots’ whose only contribution to any military action is cheerleading it from several thousand miles away?

  75. 75.

    J C

    You seriously want to defend that? You don’t misremember if your Helicopter was shot down. You don’t. Period. Gettting shot at and getting shot down while having to make an emergency landing are not even close to the same things. You don’t misremember something like that. He lied. Period.

    I’m astounded you don’t understand this.

  76. 76.

    mik

    I have been in combat. Everyone I know that has been would say that you remember EXACTLY, almost second by second, what happened to you up to the point you are hit! @aimai:

  77. 77.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    Hey, he’s not Tom Brokaw. By which I mean that he doesn’t shit all over the president because he’s a racist asshole. I mean, get outraged if you want but in the grand scheme of things this is not much.

  78. 78.

    feebog

    Strange how Williams gets a pass, even though he has been repeating this bullshit for years, while Hillary Clinton is a lying bitch.

  79. 79.

    askew

    @feebog:

    Hillary’s story is 100% worse. She said that she was dodging sniper fire and had to run sprinting from the tarmac. Instead she was greeted by children giving her flowers. The entire story was made up out of thin air. She told it multiple times over the course of the campaign and when Sinbad of all people finally called her on it, she said she misremembered because she was tired. That is some nutjob behavior.

    That said, I don’t excuse Williams either. But, he’s not running to be President. It is much less important that he is a liar who can’t be trusted. Plus, he doesn’t have a history of lying or embellishing like HIllary does. She’s been caught in lies for decades now.

  80. 80.

    ? Martin

    @J C: You’re wrong. The problem with memory is that it is far, far more malleable than any of us are comfortable admitting. We mix something that happened with something we saw, and our brain smashes them together in a way that we become convinced the thing that we saw was part of the thing that happened. Over time, things just get more distorted.

    Worse, it varies by person. Some people do have eidetic memories (we have a group that research those individuals – people who can go to any date in their life and tell you exactly what happened that day down to what everyone was wearing) and their memories almost never distort. Others are far more susceptible to this.

    The problem for someone like Brian Williams (or Hillary Clinton) is that he sees so much more than most people. His range of experience is massive and what he views as part of his job is equally massive. I would imagine his memory is a constant jumble. It’s sorted in the sense that there are clear narratives there, but the narratives are a soup of fact and fiction.

  81. 81.

    Culture of Truth

    Williams has always uncutuous, far too in love with his own ironic hip handsomeness, much too quick to look down on his betters (bloggers) and works the establishment too well. Having said that, I can see how he might mis-remember a traumatic incident… having said that, it cerainly makes me question his choice of profession, where you literally don’t have to do anything *but* get facts right. Also, it’s not true he gained no personal benefit from the story; it makes him look bold and brave and heroic and troop-supporting, which is gold in the DC cocktail party circuit.

  83. 83.

    Heliopause

    Funny, the large number of things that comes out of these people’s mouths being goddamned lies, but it’s not until there is some perceived minor slight to the Empire’s massive military machine that anybody gets bent out of shape.

  85. 85.

    JustRuss

    That said, I don’t excuse Williams either. But, he’s not running to be President. It is much less important that he is a liar who can’t be trusted.

    Yeah, he’s just the anchor for one of the most-watched news programs in America. Who cares if he’s fast and loose with the truth?*

    *Probably no one at NBC who matters.

  86. 86.

    sharl

    Just popping in to add the latest on this, fwiw. I don’t think any of the new stuff is of a nature to change JGC’s mind. And while I have no expertise in human memory and its flaws, what Martin wrote at #82 seems plausible to me, based on what little I’ve read on the topic.

    Stars & Stripes reporter Travis Tritten (@Travis_Tritten) has been all over this story. His latest S&S post is here, and there was also a follow-on interview with Washingtonian magazine:

    7 Questions for Travis Tritten, Reporter Who Debunked Brian Williams’s Helicopter Story
    How he got the story, and why it’s not over yet.

    Even after you strip away all the phony-baloney outrage from the 101st Chairborne Keyboard Kommando crowd, there remains a range of reactions from both those who served (like JGC) and more specifically, those who’ve seen combat up close and personal (like Sooner). The range appears to go from {shrug} whatever, to FIRE THAT MILLIONAIRE MEDIA DUDE’S ASS!

    {Shrug} Heh, people, y’know?…

    The story is bigger than it deserves to be, but if it results in greater interest in the flawed nature of human memory and the tragedy that often brings – and by tragedy I mean stuff like false courtroom convictions, NOT an inconvenienced and embarrassed media multimillionaire – then maybe a little bit of something good could come of this.

  88. 88.

    Lacywood

    Maybe some repetition is in order because there also are dudes posting above that Williams came along an hour or more after the RPG stuck helicopter when in fact, Williams pilot says they were right behind the struck craft, but went on to deliver their payload, then returned to the downed helicopter. This explains why the downed craft’s pilot would say Williams arrived on the scene so much later.

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