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Williams: We Have Guys on Our Team Like Terrorists - Special Forces, First Responders
Hardball/NewsBusters ^ | Mark Finkelstein

Posted on 08/10/2006 7:11:55 PM PDT by governsleastgovernsbest

by Mark Finkelstein

August 10, 2006 - 22:01

Hat tip to poster 'nutmeg' at Free Republic.

Brian Williams of NBC Nightly News might have meant to praise the heroism and selflessness of our various service people. But he employed what was at best an incredibly awkward, at worst an inappropriate, offensive and simply wrong manner of doing it.

On this evening's 7 PM ET edition of Hardball, Chris Matthews mused about the UK-born terrorists whose plot was foiled today:

"Here we have maybe 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 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."

Wrong. Our people are highly trained to accomplish their mission in a manner that gives them the best possible chance of survival. Yes, they heroically assume great risks, knowingly putting their lives on the line. But it is grotesquely mistaken for Williams to suggest that their commanders are sending them on suicide missions. To compare them with terrorists - often young, confused people being exploited by cynical masters who send them to their deaths - is disgraceful.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; United Kingdom; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: 911; armyrangers; brianwilliams; chrismatthews; firstresponders; hardball; london; msnbc; navyseals; nbcnews; nbcnightlynews; specialforces; terrorists; terrorplot; uhohhowlin; uk
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To: jackv
"they want to kill themselves to hurt us... there are guys on our team like that, too"

He didn't say that first part, Matthews did.

21 posted on 08/10/2006 7:22:21 PM PDT by Howlin (Pres.Bush ought to be ashamed of himself for allowing foreign countries right on our borders!!~~Zook)
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To: Don'tMessWithTexas
treasonous
22 posted on 08/10/2006 7:23:03 PM PDT by Don'tMessWithTexas
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To: Howlin
He wasn't trashing the Rangers and the Seals.

Maybe I'm missing something .. but I took Williams comments as tough he was comparing the two

23 posted on 08/10/2006 7:24:27 PM PDT by Mo1 (Bolton- "No one has explained how you negotiate a ceasefire with terrorists")
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To: Howlin

Precisely.


24 posted on 08/10/2006 7:25:08 PM PDT by Don'tMessWithTexas
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The liberal mind cannot get past the zeal, to see the motives behind the behaviors. Willimas is a typical blind liberal. Their abject blindness is why they impute motives to Bush that are irrational yet precisely what a liberal would do if roles were reversed.


25 posted on 08/10/2006 7:25:44 PM PDT by MHGinTN (If you can read this, you've had life support from someone. Promote life support for others.)
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To: Howlin
He misspoke

Maybe ... but he should known better then to say a thing like that

26 posted on 08/10/2006 7:26:23 PM PDT by Mo1 (Bolton- "No one has explained how you negotiate a ceasefire with terrorists")
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To: Howlin

I know that!!
He was directly responding to that comment tho.
Good grief. Not the end of the world.
His words were very poorly chosen is all we're saying.
This isn't the first time he sounds like a dunce!


27 posted on 08/10/2006 7:26:23 PM PDT by jackv (just shakin' my head)
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To: jackv
His words were very poorly chosen is all we're saying.

I said that on the other thread and the poster said I must agree with Williams and think the Rangers and Seals were like terrorist.

28 posted on 08/10/2006 7:27:23 PM PDT by Howlin (Pres.Bush ought to be ashamed of himself for allowing foreign countries right on our borders!!~~Zook)
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To: Howlin
He did NOT say it with malice.

I tried to make that point in the first sentence of the post.

29 posted on 08/10/2006 7:27:25 PM PDT by governsleastgovernsbest (Watching the Today Show since 2002 so you don't have to.)
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To: Mo1

You had to see how it happened; he was in London, he was on first, and it was the end of his segment and Chris asked him one more question.


30 posted on 08/10/2006 7:28:01 PM PDT by Howlin (Pres.Bush ought to be ashamed of himself for allowing foreign countries right on our borders!!~~Zook)
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To: Howlin

Oh brother!!


31 posted on 08/10/2006 7:28:26 PM PDT by jackv (just shakin' my head)
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To: RasterMaster


32 posted on 08/10/2006 7:28:29 PM PDT by Diogenesis (Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum)
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To: governsleastgovernsbest

That's it. Now they are grasping at straws and not to well either. I can't believe dumb can get dumber. There is a big difference between our special forces who know the value of life and a culture that doesn't or isn't allowed to.


33 posted on 08/10/2006 7:29:10 PM PDT by freekitty
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To: jackv

This whole thing is a tempest in a teapot.


34 posted on 08/10/2006 7:30:12 PM PDT by Don'tMessWithTexas
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To: Howlin
You had to see how it happened

Ok ... that is true

But putting our guys in the same category of the terrorists is way out of line

35 posted on 08/10/2006 7:30:44 PM PDT by Mo1 (Bolton- "No one has explained how you negotiate a ceasefire with terrorists")
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To: governsleastgovernsbest

I'm no friend of Brian Williams and definitely not a friend of the MSM but I really think he meant this as an accolade rather than a smear.


36 posted on 08/10/2006 7:30:45 PM PDT by no dems (www.4condi.com)
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To: Howlin

I understand what you are saying but Williams is being paid millions of dollars to not make such mistakes. This is not the first time he has been so reckless.


37 posted on 08/10/2006 7:31:48 PM PDT by Albertafriend
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To: governsleastgovernsbest

Everybody says things out of context; that's no need for us to take up arms for what appears to have been a slip of the tongue, i.e., not either having or taking the time to DIFFERENTIATE between why ours are better.


38 posted on 08/10/2006 7:31:55 PM PDT by Howlin (Pres.Bush ought to be ashamed of himself for allowing foreign countries right on our borders!!~~Zook)
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To: governsleastgovernsbest

Where is the transcript? Without a full transcript to establish context it is impossible to tell if these remarks were just ambiguous and clumsy, or were as offensive as many here seem to believe.


39 posted on 08/10/2006 7:32:28 PM PDT by TChad
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To: Albertafriend; Inspectorette
You mean like this:

To: spectre; Howlin
As much as I hate to bring it up, even our beloved Brit Hume once made a statement that got him into trouble. He was talking about the number of our brave servicepeople who had been killed in Iraq, and said that there were less battle casualties than people who had been murdered in California during the same time period.

It was an unfortunate statement that he obviously regretted making, and he certainly was not trying to be dismissive of our troop losses. Needless to say, he was hammered mercilessly by the left.

337 posted on 08/10/2006 10:19:13 PM EDT by Inspectorette

40 posted on 08/10/2006 7:33:49 PM PDT by Howlin (Pres.Bush ought to be ashamed of himself for allowing foreign countries right on our borders!!~~Zook)
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