Sometimes the lameness of an apology tells us more about someone's character than the transgression being apologized for does:
WASHINGTON — 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.”
He didn't "make a mistake." His mind didn't "screw up" and "conflate one aircraft with another." He flat-out lied to make himself look heroic and give himself war-correspondent cred. And then he got called out on it. I can imagine these crew memers quietly (or not so quietly) fuming for years as this puffed-up jackass goes on and on about what a harrowing experience it was, then finally deciding they'd had enough and snapping.
I've beeen in circumstances a time or two in which I was, well, scared to death is the only way to describe it. It is something you never forget for the rest of your life, and you never "make a mistake" about it. If you haven't experienced the feeling, you don't somehow mistakenly think you have.
Lord, what the news business has come to, that people like this are running around loose. I suppose it is too much to hope for that he will be fired or forced to resign in disgrace.
