well, the "legend" of brian williams, television net work news anchor, seems to be unraveling a bit at the edges. strained at the middle, even.
who knows? i wasn't there. but, others who were there contradict him on matters, and he is shown resplendent in hip waders in an inch of water, where he claims to have seen the body floating by. and, he has tendered an "admission" that he "conflated" facts about the helicopter ride in iraq, and that the passage of time has confused him, which is sort of like an apology for lying. sorta.
well, as hillary clinton has said, "what difference does it make?" (she is after all a woman who bravely said that she came under fire when she got off a plane in bosnia, or serbia, or hertzagovania, or wherever it was? maybe she was confused, and maybe she just conflated?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/21/AR2008032102989.html .
or, maybe she just lied. yeah, that's it, we used to call "conflating on purpose" lying, but, these are gentler times.
i find all this somewhere in the middle of mildly humorous and just damned tragic, from a civics standpoint. first, the serious side of it. here we have two "important people" (and i say that advisedly) in our society, people who have assumed the mantle of public trust and who are expected to have more than a nodding acquaintance w/, ... , well, for lack of a better word, ... , truth. and, from whom we are rightfully to expect a modicum of rectitude and piety.
that's the damned tragic part.
now, for the mildly humorous part.
we are in the process of flailing brian williams of his public skin, and by the time it is over, he is gonna wish he were anthony wiener (who cares how you spell it, it is the same, "weiner" or "wiener"). yet, we have in the background, surely enjoying the whole spectacle, one barack "practically insane" obama.
we have elected a man to the presidency whose birth we do not know about. a man who ordered the facts on his background hidden behind presidential order, of doubtful legality. a man whose lies are so transparent to beg description, and a man whose flagrant violation of the laws and constitutional rules of our democracy goes unreported, unnoticed, and un-commented upon. and, may i say, totally un-investigated. hey, "fast & furious" anyone? the irs scandals? we know more about his golf scores than we do any other facet of his life, ... , in the presence of the world's greatest collective of investigative journalists.
brian williams is going to be deconstructed in several days. barack "the one and true hussein" obama is above it all, all such tawdry concerns, for 6 years. even as he throws the ukraine down the drain.
as for me, i don't much care if brian williams turns out to be a liar, when we cannot seem to give a rip about obama. it is, just mildly humorous. very "mildly," indeed.
john jay @ 02.06.2015
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