Brian Williams Steps In It
(This post went up last night, originally. But Thomas went to bed after waiting seven hours for MSNBC to post the transcript of Hardball. They did not by midnight, so it fell to me to make sure the transcript was located, linked, and posted today.)
I just heard this exchange between Chris Matthews and Brian Williams. Jed Babbin, who is subbing for Hugh Hewitt while he's on vacation, just played it. Brian Williams, anchor of NBC Nightly News, compared our troops--our elite spec-ops guys--and First Responders to Islamofascist terrorists. His reasoning behind the statement? They are willing to give their lives to do their jobs, just like the terrorists do. I'm still waiting for the transcript to go up on the MSNBC site, but there was this that I located on this in the comments on Brian Williams's blog on MSNBC:
Let me get this straight. You see an analogy, even a moral equivalent between Islamic terrorist suicide bombers and members of our Special Forces, Army Rangers, First Responders, and other patriotic Americans willing to give their life to save another or protect our citizenry. Wow. You need to really think about what you just said on Hardball. Our military and first responders are not kamikazee.
As soon as I have the transcript, I will post the link and the excerpt right here.
Publius II
UPDATE 9:53 a.m. AZ Time (August 11, 2006)--Gotcha! Thomas stayed up well past midnight last night waiting for this transcript, and it never came down. First thing this morning, I checked it, and found it right off the bat. Here is Brian Williams doing his best John Kerry impersonation of "open mouth, insert foot."
MATTHEWS: You know, in our first edition of HARDBALL tonight, we had a senator on, former Senator John Edwards on, who said that once these people in the east and the Islamic world get to know us personally, understand our good character, as he said, they wouldn‘t hate us so much, they wouldn‘t want to commit suicide to hurt us. But here we have maybe 25, 24 people who have lived in London and England and the free world for all these years, that become citizens, subjects of the crown, and, yet, after having gotten to know us, they want to kill themselves to hurt us. Isn‘t that an even deeper conundrum here than the chemicals being used in these attacks?
WILLIAMS: And that, Chris, that last aspect, the willingness to take one‘s own life, I always tell people, you know, there are guys on our team like that, too. They‘re called Army Rangers and Navy Seals and the special forces folks and the first responders on 9/11 who went into those buildings knowing, by the way, they weren‘t going to come out. So we have players like that on our team. But to the center of your question, it goes to etiology. Can you reverse the clock here. We now know this is the conflict of our generation. Who would have thought it would take this shape? Who would have thought it would be against an enemy we can‘t always see, and who would have thought the new target would be a stainless steel tube flying, as you put it, at 39,000 feet, full of innocent people.
All right. To Brian Williams our first responders--police, fire, and paramedic--and our elite soldiers--Army Rangers, Navy SEALs, Marine Force Recon, and Army Delta--are just like the terrorists because they are willing to lay down their lives. I take EXTREME offense to this. My brother is an Army Ranger serving in Afghanistan. He is not terrorist. He would never think of strapping a bomb on, and running at our enemy. He would never think of harming any innocent lives.
The terrorists do precisely that. They target our troops and the indigenous forces that work alongside of them. They target innocent civilians without compunction or remorse. Meanwhile the "players like that on our team," as Mr. Williams crudely refers to them, put their lives on the line each and every dayfighting to protect the innocent or the weak. Terrorists do not do that, and no amount of Reuters spin will carry a message contrary to that to America.
We know what terrorists are. And Thomas is fond of saying, "One good deed does not make up for a lifetime of mistakes." If Hezbollah, or even Osama bin Laden wish to be remembered as "humanitarians" then they never should have taken up the sword of jihad. They will never be seen as anything but barbaric animals to the West; in Europe the dhimmis take a fonder view of them, but that is to avoid their own necks being on a chopping block.
Brian Willaims, who seems unable to draw a contrast between our military guys in the field and the terrorists who want us dead, had better go back and do some research. I cannot believe that a journalist like him can be so obtuse. But if this is the sort of ill-informed journalism that NBC opts to keep around, maybe people should be switching Mr. Williams off for the night, and choose better news coverage. It is clear to me that a man like this, who cannot discern the difference between someone willing to risk their life to save people, as opposed to those who are willing to lose their life to kill others, is a sad and stupid man.
At the very least, Mr. Willaims owes our first responders and our military an apology for his badly chosen words.
Marcie
(This post went up last night, originally. But Thomas went to bed after waiting seven hours for MSNBC to post the transcript of Hardball. They did not by midnight, so it fell to me to make sure the transcript was located, linked, and posted today.)
I just heard this exchange between Chris Matthews and Brian Williams. Jed Babbin, who is subbing for Hugh Hewitt while he's on vacation, just played it. Brian Williams, anchor of NBC Nightly News, compared our troops--our elite spec-ops guys--and First Responders to Islamofascist terrorists. His reasoning behind the statement? They are willing to give their lives to do their jobs, just like the terrorists do. I'm still waiting for the transcript to go up on the MSNBC site, but there was this that I located on this in the comments on Brian Williams's blog on MSNBC:
Let me get this straight. You see an analogy, even a moral equivalent between Islamic terrorist suicide bombers and members of our Special Forces, Army Rangers, First Responders, and other patriotic Americans willing to give their life to save another or protect our citizenry. Wow. You need to really think about what you just said on Hardball. Our military and first responders are not kamikazee.
As soon as I have the transcript, I will post the link and the excerpt right here.
Publius II
UPDATE 9:53 a.m. AZ Time (August 11, 2006)--Gotcha! Thomas stayed up well past midnight last night waiting for this transcript, and it never came down. First thing this morning, I checked it, and found it right off the bat. Here is Brian Williams doing his best John Kerry impersonation of "open mouth, insert foot."
MATTHEWS: You know, in our first edition of HARDBALL tonight, we had a senator on, former Senator John Edwards on, who said that once these people in the east and the Islamic world get to know us personally, understand our good character, as he said, they wouldn‘t hate us so much, they wouldn‘t want to commit suicide to hurt us. But here we have maybe 25, 24 people who have lived in London and England and the free world for all these years, that become citizens, subjects of the crown, and, yet, after having gotten to know us, they want to kill themselves to hurt us. Isn‘t that an even deeper conundrum here than the chemicals being used in these attacks?
WILLIAMS: And that, Chris, that last aspect, the willingness to take one‘s own life, I always tell people, you know, there are guys on our team like that, too. They‘re called Army Rangers and Navy Seals and the special forces folks and the first responders on 9/11 who went into those buildings knowing, by the way, they weren‘t going to come out. So we have players like that on our team. But to the center of your question, it goes to etiology. Can you reverse the clock here. We now know this is the conflict of our generation. Who would have thought it would take this shape? Who would have thought it would be against an enemy we can‘t always see, and who would have thought the new target would be a stainless steel tube flying, as you put it, at 39,000 feet, full of innocent people.
All right. To Brian Williams our first responders--police, fire, and paramedic--and our elite soldiers--Army Rangers, Navy SEALs, Marine Force Recon, and Army Delta--are just like the terrorists because they are willing to lay down their lives. I take EXTREME offense to this. My brother is an Army Ranger serving in Afghanistan. He is not terrorist. He would never think of strapping a bomb on, and running at our enemy. He would never think of harming any innocent lives.
The terrorists do precisely that. They target our troops and the indigenous forces that work alongside of them. They target innocent civilians without compunction or remorse. Meanwhile the "players like that on our team," as Mr. Williams crudely refers to them, put their lives on the line each and every dayfighting to protect the innocent or the weak. Terrorists do not do that, and no amount of Reuters spin will carry a message contrary to that to America.
We know what terrorists are. And Thomas is fond of saying, "One good deed does not make up for a lifetime of mistakes." If Hezbollah, or even Osama bin Laden wish to be remembered as "humanitarians" then they never should have taken up the sword of jihad. They will never be seen as anything but barbaric animals to the West; in Europe the dhimmis take a fonder view of them, but that is to avoid their own necks being on a chopping block.
Brian Willaims, who seems unable to draw a contrast between our military guys in the field and the terrorists who want us dead, had better go back and do some research. I cannot believe that a journalist like him can be so obtuse. But if this is the sort of ill-informed journalism that NBC opts to keep around, maybe people should be switching Mr. Williams off for the night, and choose better news coverage. It is clear to me that a man like this, who cannot discern the difference between someone willing to risk their life to save people, as opposed to those who are willing to lose their life to kill others, is a sad and stupid man.
At the very least, Mr. Willaims owes our first responders and our military an apology for his badly chosen words.
Marcie
posted by Syd And Vaughn | 10:21 AM
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