Brian Williams, Between 30 Rock and a Hard Place

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JOHN FUND: Texas's undeniable economic success will be an issue in 2016. Is Texas 'Crazy' or Is It the Real America?

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THE EDITORS: Republicans have an ACA alternative. A Creditable Plan.

SLIDESHOW: Red Carpet: Grammy Awards.

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February 09, 2015

Brian Williams, Between 30 Rock and a Hard Place

Back on February 5, I had a brief Twitter exchange with the gentlemanly Nick Confessore of the New York Times; he insisted that his employer hadn't underplayed the news about Brian Williams by putting it on page B10.

On February 6, the New York Times put its Brian Williams story on page 1, with three reporters contributing to the lengthy article.

Williams's effort to retain his position may be complicated if there is a series of statements he made that are exaggerated or over-dramatized at best, lies at worst:

There's a story Brian Williams likes to tell. He has told it in a TV interview. He has told it to at least two book authors. But even though it had all the makings of a great yarn — danger, guns, resolve — Williams never reported it to his viewers.

It's the one about the gangs that Williams claimed had "overrun" a posh Ritz-Carlton where he stayed during Hurricane Katrina.

For Williams, few stories illustrated that predilection to talk more than his takes on Katrina — the stories with which he made his bones. But now some of them are taking heat.

Among them: The one he told about witnessing a suicide at the Superdome. Or the one he told about watching a body float past the Ritz-Carlton, perched at the edge of an otherwise dry French Quarter. Or the one about the dysentery he said he got. And, finally, the story he told about the Ritz-Carlton gangs. Three separate sources told reporters no gangs infiltrated the Ritz-Carlton.

David Zurawik, television critic of the Baltimore Sun, was one of the few reporters who actually paid attention to Chelsea Clinton's brief, unimaginably lucrative career as a television reporter for NBC News. His assessment when Rock Center was finally cancelled:

From the hiring of the Chelsea Clinton as special correspondent, to the quotes from Williams comparing his team to the baseball Hall of Famers in Cooperstown, never has such journalistic bankruptcy been promoted with such self-important bluster. And that's saying something in a TV business built as much on narcissism and hype as it is journalism.

For all the alleged newsmagazine all-stars, the best journalistic moment "Rock Center" had came from Bob Costas, a sports commentator and essayist, in his interview with disgraced former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. Costas is a legitimate Hall of Famer in his realms of sports and popular culture. But he's a member of the "Sunday Night Football" team -- not "Rock Center."

I have wasted all the words I can on Clinton's pathetic performance -- and the preposterous claim by Steve Capus, then-president of NBC News, that it was as if Clinton had been preparing her whole life to be a network newswoman.

Was there anyone connected with this show who could speak the truth about anything -- or did they think if they said they were epic, people would automatically believe them?

You can argue that Chelsea Clinton's NBC News work -- $600,000 per year for poor-quality part-time work -- is sort of the Rosetta Stone for a lot that's wrong in modern American life -- the incestuous relationship between the governing class and the media, the power of celebrity and nepotism, the disregard of legitimate criticism and the morale for those who actually did the work. Brian Williams had a big hand in that mess, and so that may explain why some are enjoying his recent troubles.

A Chance to Un-Do One of 2014's Worst Incumbent Victories

Remember John Kitzhaber, the terrible governor of Oregon, whose fiancée was running a "consulting business" with groups that wanted to influence state policy? With even more examples of conflicts of interest coming to light, Kitzhaber now faces an effort to have him recalled -- which has to wait until he's served six months in this term:

Two leaders of Republican Dennis Richardson's failed gubernatorial campaign last fall have filed a prospective petition with the state seeking to launch a recall of Gov. John Kitzhaber.

It's the second recall effort filed this week, yet potentially the more viable. Richardson has a vast email database that could help achieve the 220,000 signatures necessary to get a recall on the ballot.

Does the recall get him first, or the criminal investigation?

Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum said her office is looking into whether to launch an investigation of first lady Cylvia Hayes' private consulting business and Gov. John Kitzhaber's possible involvement in securing some of those contracts.

"Recent allegations relating to Governor Kitzhaber and Ms. Hayes are very serious — and troubling," Rosenblum said in a statement emailed to the EO Media Group/Pamplin Media Group Capital Bureau Friday morning. "My office is considering all of our legal options to ensure that we are best serving the state."

This is bad:

Willamette Week first reported in October that Hayes was paid at least $85,000 for work that overlapped with policies on which she was an official, although unpaid, advisor to the governor. The EO Media Group/Pamplin Media Group Capital Bureau reported Jan. 27 that Hayes was paid an additional $118,000 by a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit called the Clean Economy Development Center that worked in 2014 to organize a coalition in support of a permanent Oregon low-carbon fuels standard.

When an additional job that paid Hayes $25,000 in 2011 is factored in, Hayes's contracting work during Kitzhaber's third term appears to have brought in more than $200,000.

Willamette Week has also reported Hayes does not appear to have reported some of her income during this period to the IRS.

"Only the little people pay taxes."

For what it's worth, John McLaughlin of The McLaughlin Group predicts Kitzhaber will be gone by Easter.

I Suppose 'Oh, for Heaven's Sake' Might Be Ironic in This Situation

Blog long enough, and you'll get accused of just about everything, I suppose.

Typical nonsense, over at FrontPage magazine:

Instead of highlighting the obvious, that Debbie Wasserman Schultz is a cynical liar, several conservative blogs chose to attack Judaism. HotAir hit rock bottom with a deranged Noah Rothman screed accusing traditional Jews of "poisonous, ethnocentric chauvinism". Jim Geraghty threw in his own 2 cents on National Review's blog. Would he have written in the same mocking tone if Nancy Pelosi had been privately taped at a Catholic event questioning late term abortion?

I doubt it.

Oh, trust me, pal. I write about just about everybody in a mocking tone.

The notion that I attack Judaism is laughable and insulting; the only Jewish thing I've ever attacked was a plate of rugelach.

But let's pause for a quick point on Debbie Wasserman Schultz mentioning "the problem of intermarriage" to a Jewish audience.

I'm not sure I want anybody in government declaring other people's marriages to be a problem . . . other than maybe the Kardashian ones. Some people I know and respect deem Jews marrying non-Jews to be enough of a quandary to the long-term existence of the Jewish people that they feel the need to speak out publicly against it. Despite my respect for them, I disagree strongly.

I do find it pretty spectacularly ironic that when Florida legalized same-sex marriage, Wasserman Schultz declared, "I am so happy that my children are witnessing this chapter in our history and will grow up in a state where marriage is available for all loving couples" and then she can turn around and suggest that a loving couple of two different faiths is "a problem." Again, I wonder what her perspective on gay intermarriage is.

And naturally, if a Republican had said what Wasserman Schultz said, we would have weeks of intense media coverage about Republicans' religious intolerance, bigotry, desire to meddle in the most personal choices of other people, etc. . . .

ADDENDA: Here's one portion of yesterday's appearance on Howard Kurtz's MediaBuzz, discussing the media's coverage of the vaccine controversy and Republicans; this includes my line, "Like alcohol, Twitter doesn't change you, it only reveals you."

For the die-hard Twin Peaks junkies like myself, Joel Bocko has put together an extraordinarily detailed, thought-provoking YouTube series "Journey Through Twin Peaks," dissecting the television series, movie, subsequent work, and ideas of the new series coming in 2016.

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Brian Williams, Between 30 Rock and a Hard Place

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