Posted on 02/11/2015 7:28:39 AM PST by Kaslin
By now everyone knows about his transgressions. If even only some of the reports are true, Brian Williams is a serial embellisher, a self-aggrandizing fabulist.
No doubt everyone knows somebody like this, and if you don't it's probably because you're that guy. But Williams' case is special. This isn't some sad Willy Loman at the end of the bar who needs to invent impressive stories about himself. If anything, he needed to not tell such stories, given that he reportedly makes more than $10 million a year to be a trusted name in news.
Yet he couldn't stop himself.
"To walk down a street with an anchor is to be stunned both by how many people recognize them and how many viewers call out to them about specific stories," writes Ken Auletta, the New Yorker's media critic. "There's a respectful familiarity different from the awe displayed to Hollywood celebrities. The anchor is treated as the citizen's trusted guide to the news. As a result, they can feel expected to dominate discussions, to tell war stories, to play God."
I have no doubt that's true. But I am also certain that Williams is hearing only from the people who see him as their trusted guide to the news, and that can be very deceptive.
If Kathy Griffin is the quintessential D-list celebrity, then I'm probably somewhere south of Z. But I do get recognized at airports and restaurants from time to time, mostly because of my stints on Fox News. A couple dozen times a year, someone will come up and compliment me. (Or, they'll compliment the Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes, thinking I'm him.)
But you know what virtually never happens? Someone coming up to me to tell me how much they hated my column, my comments, my book, my face or my existence.
Now, all you have to do is peek at the comment thread on this column to know that such people exist. Some mornings my inbox is like the Ark of the Covenant in the first Indiana Jones movie; one look inside will melt your face. Yet almost none of these people ever say anything to me personally. If I didn't know better -- and believe me I do -- I might get a pretty skewed impression of what "the public" thinks of me.
So I can only imagine what it must be like for truly famous people, who live in Olympian redoubts, protected from criticism, among people with a professional interest in their divinity.
I recently talked to a donor close to Mitt Romney. He said that one of the reasons Romney briefly flirted with a third run for the White House is that he spent the last two years hearing from fans telling him he should run again. They'd come up to him at airports and parties and say only flattering and encouraging things. It's easy to imagine how misleading that could be. No one was going to run up to Romney and say, "Don't even think of running again." It was only when he actually tested the sincerity of the flattery that he discovered he was getting a false market signal.
And that's Mitt Romney, a vastly more controversial figure. Until this story broke, Williams was an unobtrusive news-reading mannequin who occasionally broke character to tell jokes -- and fake tales of valor -- on late-night talk shows. Perhaps he told these stories because, deep down, he knew he was a false idol. Or maybe not.
But it is instructive to watch Williams' fellow media Olympians rally to his defense. They have an investment in a system that rewards celebrity so handsomely -- and not just financially. They are the last beneficiaries of the Old Order, when nightly news anchors were cultivated to be "the voice of God," as insiders at CBS used to call the position.
Those days are almost gone. In a recent Pew Research Center survey, only 27 percent of respondents could correctly identify Williams from his photograph, and only 3 percent could say what he did for a living. Three percent thought he was Tom Brokaw, and 2 percent thought he was Joe Biden.
Thanks to social media -- which was Williams' undoing (and Dan Rather's) -- we are living in the twilight of the idols. But, as always, the last people to let go of the old gods are their loyal priests.
Don’t blame Brian Williams. The enemedia, like Hollyweird, is totally drunk with their over-inflated sense of self-importance.
Least Williams will always have memories of eating Vienna sausages with John Kerry on that swift boat at Christmas...
What difference does it make? (Hmmm, I’ve heard that somewhere before.)
The bimboy will be replaced by another cloned bimboy or bimbo.
Nothing will change.
If you pull out the resume and time-line....this guy moves like silk through college and onto some minor-league Kansas TV station...staying barely a year, and onto an independent DC station (before they were Fox) a year, and onto Philly a year later...then a couple of years later he’s on the CBS flag-station of NY City by age thirty. I just can’t think of too many guys who have that type of luck, unless there were various women involved and helping.
Obama can use another good liar spokesperson to explain his inexplicable actions.
Do you mean “puffed” or “poofed”?
Bill Moyers called Rush Limbaugh a "fabulist" back in 2013.
Hey CBS I think we found a replacement for Dan Rather
Well, we have six months to generate beaucoup more jokes and cartoons to mock and ridicule the pathological liar when he returns to excrete his daily load on the fifth-column NBC "News."
NBC will have already decided a permanent replacement, either a woman or minority and William's fate is sealed.
They dare not promote yet another White Man.
No, I am sure Jonah Goldberg meant puffed, because it fits Williams
LOL - I'm so glad you're here to make these kinds of comments...just sums up the whole issue..
“Puffed-Up Tales”
...exploiting the courage, bravery and sacrifice of American soldiers and calling it his own, just like so many Progressives who do the same yet denigrate those who serve.
They are all absolute low-life, adolescent creeps who should all move to the nurturing Cuban paradise they love so much and never look back at the United States of America.
IMHO
When will NBC fire the company employees who aided, abetted, and backed up all the Williams’ lies. Until they’re out, we can believe nothing from this network.
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