Uh-Oh, Brian

Seems that Brian Williams' exaggerations are continuing to be rooted out, the latest catch pertaining to his presence at the Arab Spring protests in Egypt's Tahir Square back in 2011.

Actually, the details don't matter too much, it's the bigger picture that matters, so I really appreciated this analysis over at First Draft:

Again, this isn’t nothing. Brian Williams had a very big chair with a very big microphone in front of it. But the stories we’ve heard about aren’t exaggerations on the facts of the story as they related to the story or anyone in it. They’re exaggerations on how fucking cool and badass Brian Williams is, and about all the crazy shit he’s seen, man. They’re basically a guy in a bar, telling war stories, only he’s on TV.

That’s not okay, but it’s not the UVA rape story. It’s not Judith Miller’s Iraq reporting. Nobody died. And more attention is being paid to these fabrications than the ones that did lead to deaths. To wars

So we are arguing about who fucked up the color of the bunting on the runaway train. Yeah, let’s fire that guy, because he screwed up. But let’s also find out why the brakes failed and the cargo’s flying off and oh, up ahead, is that a hole? A big one? Well, shit. Guess we’re going straight in.

All lies are lies and all lies on this scale are wrong and should be rooted out. But not all lies lead to the same place.

Seems that the hapless Brian is the only one being held accountable for lies pertaining to Iraq (yes, I realize this story is about Egypt) but it does certainly beg the question as to why "the media" isn't conducting a massive analysis of how the war in Iraq was sold and prosecuted.  Sure, President Obama made quite the point about looking forward, not backward, when it came to war crimes...but I think that he was trying to set a self-serving precedent for when his actions might later be scrutinized.  

In other words, rather than do the right things as president and thus NOT be at risk for crimes, he instead chose to tee up an established precedent for future presidents to have a get-out-of-jail-free card.  Think about the drone war and how that'll look in hindsight.  Oh wait!  Hopefully the next president won't want to look back either!

The bride and I (in truth, me much more than her) used to be news junkies, but of late we've pulled back.  And you know what?  The world keeps on going, minus some of our outrage.