Suspended NBC News celebrity anchorman Brian Williams continues to come under scrutiny. Now that the man whose big fib about being in a military helicopter that came under enemy fire in Iraq has been exposed as a pathological liar, his entire career is being picked apart. I recently wrote that “One almost expects to see statements pop up that Williams was riding shotgun with SEAL Team Six during the raid that was alleged to have resulted in the killing of Osama bin Laden” but I was only being sarcastic. Now lo and behold, an actual story has surfaced of ‘lyin Brian actually claiming that he was embedded with SEAL Team Six. You just can’t make shit like this up.
As reported by CNN’s Peter Bergen in the online piece “Did Brian Williams embed with SEAL Team 6?”:
Embattled NBC News anchor Brian Williams may have some more explaining to do.
On May 3, 2011, just two days after the daring U.S. Navy SEAL Team 6 raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, Williams said on his NBC News show, "Now, people might be hearing about SEAL Team 6. I happen to have the great honor of flying into Baghdad with them at the start of the war."
With this statement Williams asserted that he was embedded with one of the most covert units in the U.S. military and flew with the SEALs into Iraq in March 2003 as the war there began.
When asked about this claim, a Special Operations Command spokesman Ken McGraw told CNN: "We do not embed journalists with that unit or any other unit that conducts counterterrorism missions. Bottom line -- no."
Could Williams have simply hitched a ride into Iraq with SEAL Team 6 outside of the formal embedding process? This seems quite unlikely. A SEAL officer told CNN, "That early in the conflict, there were only missions taking place, not bouncing between outstations."
With another whopper now on his resume Williams may have no choice other than to seek a job in national party politics. There are also inquires being made into whether ‘lyin Brian personally witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall as he has claimed and whether he actually met Pope John Paul II when he was in college.
In the story “NBC investigating Brian Williams' claims that he witnessed fall of Berlin Wall and met Pope John Paul II” the New York Daily News reports that:
NBC is expanding its inquiry into the alleged tall tales of suspended “Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams, CNN reported Thursday.
The network’s internal fact-checking is “nowhere near done,” a senior NBC source told the cable news channel.
The look into Williams’ exaggerated exploits has expanded beyond the anchor’s claims about being in a helicopter that was struck by an RPG during the 2003 Iraq War.
The new focus will examine Williams’ claims that he, not his predecessor Tom Brokaw, was in Germany the day the Berlin Wall fell and a story about meeting Pope John Paul II while a college student at Catholic University in 1979.
Despite efforts by the NBC News damage control team to contain the category five storm surge of bullshit it now appears that their defenses will be completely overwhelmed.
No comments:
Post a Comment