Brian Williams, 2013: I Have to Tell You, Alec Baldwin, That When My Bird Went Tango Uniform One Niner Fiver Kliks Outside of Najaf, I Pondered My Own Mortality With Manful Quietude

This showboatin' sociopathic fabulist has been telling increasingly more Total Horeshit accounts of this Non-Brush with Not-Death since 2003, getting more Heroic and Steely-Eyed every time he tells the tale.

April 2008: In another blog post, Williams again recalls the 2003 attack and says "we came under fire" -- explicitly linking his aircraft to the attack. He continues, "The Chinook helicopter flying in front of ours (from the 101st Airborne) took an RPG to the rear rotor, as all four of our low-flying Chinooks took fire. We were forced down and stayed down."

April 2008: With Williams slated to speak at the school's spring commencement ceremony, Ohio State University puts out a press release to trumpet the anchor's background. While the biography never explicitly says that Williams was in the helicopter that was struck by enemy fire, it sure implies as much. "He was the first NBC correspondent to reach Baghdad during the 2003 war in Iraq, and was part of a U.S. Army helicopter mission that was forced down by enemy fire south of Najaf," the school says.

March 2013: On the ten-year anniversary of the incident, Williams appears on "The Late Show with David Letterman." He says "two of our four helicopters were hit by ground-fire, including the one I was in, RPG and AK-47." He adds, "We figure out how to land safely and we did." The comment suggests that his helicopter were hit, and was part of the same formation.

January 2015: In a "Nightly News" segment, Williams says "the helicopter we were traveling in was forced down after being hit by an RPG."

But not on that list is a particularly Throbbing version of his Terror at Two Hundred Feet war story he told to Alec Baldwin, trying to impress him.

He actually claimed he "briefly" -- and manfully, we assume -- contemplated his own mortality as his chopper was racked by SAMs and groundfire from the AK's. (#StolenValor fabulists like to mimic the lingo of actual soldiers to sound more badass. I'm sure if you asked this Walter Mitty motherfucker about the event he'd tell you how many "kliks" he was outside of Najaf.)

But, see, what really happened was, when he found out a different helicopter flying a full hour ahead of his had been shot, Brian Williams was so traumatized that his life flashed before his eyes.

"I guess I do say to myself and to others -- I've got this' -- and I don’t know where that unbridled confidence comes from," Williams told Baldwin, trying to describe where he gets his thirst for action and challenge.

"And I've done some ridiculously stupid things under that banner, like being in a helicopter I had no business being in in Iraq with rounds coming into the airframe," Williams said.

"Did you think you would die?" Baldwin asked.

"Briefly, sure," Williams said. "There have been probably more than..." he said, before trailing off.

I wonder what further Appointments With Death he was about to recount for us before wistfully trailing off, like a Hero who doesn't want to talk about The Shit He's Seen.

Gee I don't know where my ridiculous confidence -- my "I got this" response -- comes from when I'm in dangerous situations. I think it's mostly because I'm daydreaming these Perils and really am not in any sort of danger whatsoever.

"The wagons, they are a-circlin'," AllahPundit writes, further noting that the New York Times has chosen to cover this on... page B. 10.

Sean Davis notes that the same guy who defended Neil Tyson's lies and evasions is now performing the same services for Brian Williams.

Eric Wemple notes (as many people have) that Princess Williams was certainly traveling with an NBC entourage, and those people knew the truth of this event, and yet NBC has published fabulist fictions about it not once but multiple times, with the official corporate position apparently being, "If it helps our soft, feminine-looking News Presenter appear more manly, let's go with it, for Corporate Branding Reasons."

Incidentally, various Defenders of the Liberal Social Caste have claimed that it was inconceivable to them that Brian Williams would lie; ergo, it must just be a mistake.

They claimed they could not fathom any possible motive for lying.

Even though these shitbags work in a bullhshitty, connections-y, Who You Know industry, they claim to not understand the usefulness of a lie told for professional advancement and personal aggrandizement.

Perhaps this will clear the mystery up for them.

Twitchy's partial transcript of the David Letterman interview:

Two of our four helicopters were hit by ground fire, including the one I was in.”

“No kidding!”

“RPG and AK-47.”

“What altitudes were you hit at?”

“We were only at a hundred feet doing a hundred forward knots because we had these massive pieces of bridge beneath us on slings.”

“What happens the minute everybody realizes you’ve been hit?”

“Uh, we figure out how to land safely, and we did. We landed very quickly and hard and we put down and we were stuck. Four birds in the middle of the desert, and we were north out ahead of the other Americans.”

“Oh my. So as a guy, as a journalist, what do you think? ‘This is a great position to be in,’ or ‘Holy crap, I gotta get outta here”?

“I, uh, more toward the “holy crap.”

"Four birds." See what I mean? Fuck you, Fabulist, Coward, Thief of Valor.

But this is how Letterman, suitably impressed, comments on Williams' claims of heroism:

“I have to treat you now with renewed respect,” summed up Letterman.

Do the people claiming mystification at Williams' motive for lying now understand why people lie about Cool Shit They've Done?

posted by Ace at 12:27 PM

| Access Comments