Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Brian Williams' helicopter shooting-down story

I came across this tweet from Josh "Elvis" Weinstein, the original Tom Servo:
"And if all your friends were jumping off a bridge, would you make up a story about jumping off a bridge too?"-- Teen Brian Williams' mother
"What's that about?" I thought.

I googled it.

Newscaster Brian Williams falsely claimed to have been shot down in a helicopter in Iraq in 2003. In fact, a helicopter had been shot down and he was in another helicopter that came along an hour later. It's like if you drove past a car wreck an hour after it happened and told everyone you were in a car wreck. Or if you drove through Dealey Plaza and told everyone you were shot by Lee Harvey Oswald.

How did this happen? How old is Brian Williams?

I've heard that elderly people have a tendency to tell stories they heard about other people as if they had happened to them. Long ago, my grandparents started telling stories about amazing experiences they had had, and I kept wondering why I had never heard about them before. I would have been regaling anyone who would listen if that stuff had happened to me.

Grandpa Simpson telling crazy stories is based on something actual old people do.

I suppose it could be that Williams started telling his anecdote, in his excitement got it garbled and said it like HE was in the helicopter that was shot down and instead of stopping and correcting it and sounding incoherent, let it go.

Remember Hilary Clinton claimed she was shot at landing on a plane in Bosnia after a war her husband started? What was she thinking? For God's sake, Chelsea was on that trip. She claimed she had her daughter running for her life being shot at by snipers, and for what? She was only "first lady". What was so important that they'd risk everybody's life?

But it's not like I believe all the other crap on the news.

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