NBC's Brian Williams recants story about being in a helicopter brought down in Iraq

Rolling Stone made a commitment to re-reporting their UVa story. While we still don't know the results of this, it would be interesting to know if NBC is satisfied with Williams correction, or if they will re-report the story.

If this was another national figure -- say a Republican presidential candidate -- NBC would be all over this story.

I've had MSNBC on in the background this morning. I don't think it's come up.

If there is one thing the media is terrible at, it's covering themselves.

 

I heard he hit the game winning bunt single to beat the Yankees in a one-game playoff and put the Indians in the playoffs.

 

Fixed.

 

MSNBC is still working on all derailing all Republican Presidential Candidates who misspoke on
Vacinategate.

 

That story is devastating.

It says that none of the four helicopters in his group took fire. It was a different group of three helicopters that took fire.

 

Williams and I happen to live in the same town. He has a bit of Ted Knight in him. He drives around in a heavily tinted
auto and always seems to wear shades when in local stores as if someone might bother him. No one cares.

He has spoken of the 2003 event at local military tributes such as this on on Veterans Day 2005. He has a lot
of walking back to do. Good credentials for a future Secretary of State.

Brian Williams recants Iraq story he told at 2005 New Canaan Veterans Day ceremony | New Canaan Advertiser

t was in front of this monument, engraved with the words “Loyalty,” “Service” and “Sacrifice,” that Mr. Williams shared with the crowd his experience with a young soldier in Iraq.

Traveling with the U.S. Army on a secret mission to place a bridge over the Euphrates River, establishing a road into Baghdad, Mr. Williams’s helicopter took small arms fire and was forced to land. For two nights and three days, he said, they were stranded in the desert south of Najaf, struggling with sandstorms and lack of supplies. When Capt. Eric Nye, recently graduated from the U.S. Military Academy, came upon them in a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, Mr. Williams said it was “the greatest sound I have ever heard.” Reinforced by Capt. Nye and his men, the group settled in for another night and awoke to automatic fire from Iraqis who “meant to finish off the job.”

“I would not be able to talk to you,” Mr. Williams later told an FBI official inquiring about Capt. Nye’s request for entry there, “were it not for Capt. Eric Nye.”

Praising all veterans of the Iraq war for their “unselfishness, unparalleled bravery and superb training,” Mr. Williams said, “They have been called before and will be called again, the best we have ever fielded.”

 

Everyone becomes the star of their own show. Always amazes me how someone exaggerates a story and then the lie becomes the truth and gets blown even more our of proportion.

 

There's a shocker.

Maybe Brian will shake it all off with a pithy quote?: "It’s acting TV news, no animals were harmed and nobody gets hurt."

 

If he said he shot two carjackers on the side of a dusty Texas road, he would be celebrated.

 

The fact checked adventures of Brian Williams:
The Fact-Checked Adventures of Brian Williams - The New Yorker

"1. In August of 2003, I boarded a helicopter to Steven Spielberg’s house in East Hampton. Once we were up in the air, I was alarmed to discover that there was no bottled water on board. I commanded the pilot to make an emergency landing."

 

This one is going to be interesting to watch because Williams is so beloved.

If NBC wasn't happy with him, he'd already have been fired.

I just wonder if there is more to this.

 

Williams clarified that it wasn't an RPG, but a Dateline pickup truck that hit the copter and exploded...