Somewhere Roger Goodell Is Saying, ‘Man, They Came Down Hard on Brian Williams!’

Today on NRO

JONAH GOLDBERG: Surrounded by fans and protected from criticism, it's no wonder Brian Williams became a serial fabulist. NBC's Puffed Up Anchor.

IAN TUTTLE: Despite glimmers of hope, an Iranian-American Christian pastor remains brutally imprisoned in Iran. Prayers for Pastor Abedini.

ANDREW C. MCCARTHY: Some random observations on random acts of non-Islamic violence. Folks Do the Randomest Things.

CHRISTIAN SCHNEIDER: For state colleges, modest budget cuts are balanced by valuable autonomy. Scott Walker and Wisconsin's 'Starving' University System.

SLIDESHOW: Netflix in Cuba.

Morning Jolt
. . . with Jim Geraghty

February 11, 2015

Somewhere Roger Goodell Is Saying, 'Man, They Came Down Hard on Brian Williams!'

Am I crazy for thinking this is just about the right punishment?

Brian Williams, the anchor of NBC's top-rated "Nightly News" program, has been suspended without pay for six months after admitting last week that a story he told about coming under fire on a helicopter during the Iraq war was not true, the network said on Tuesday.

As one of America's most prominent journalists, Williams' suspension and sudden downfall casts a pall over the Comcast Corp-owned network and its reputation as one of the most authoritative sources for news in the United States.

"By his actions, Brian has jeopardized the trust millions of Americans place in NBC News," NBC Universal Chief Executive Officer Steve Burke said in a statement from the network. "His actions are inexcusable and this suspension is severe and appropriate."

Williams, 55, a star anchor who has led "Nightly News" since 2004, has told different versions of a tale in which a U.S. military helicopter he was riding in during the first days of the Iraq war in 2003 was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade.

Credit where it's due; a lot of people thought NBC News would sweep it under the rug or make excuses. When I had speculated about a period of unpaid leave, my friend Cam noted that if you can easily afford the suspension, it's not much of a punishment. If the public reports about Williams' contract are correct, six months unpaid leave amounts to about $5 million in lost pay for Williams. It's serious. And yet firing Williams over the tales would seem disproportionate. If a runaway ego was a firing offense in the news business, the offices would be almost empty.

Stephen Miller: "[NBC News anchor Brian] Williams, not unlike our current President seems as though he would rather be an entertainer over the job he was hired to do."

He may be more right than he knows; Jonah offers an eye-opening statistic on how many people knew Williams was a news anchor:

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's 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.

But let's give Brian Williams a fair hearing. First witness for the defense?

Dan Rather: "He's a longtime friend and we have been in a number of war zones and on the same battlefields, competing but together. Brian is an honest, decent man, an excellent reporter and anchor -- and a brave one."

Uh, the guy who ran the fake memos story doesn't carry a lot of weight when it comes to assessing honesty. Next witness?

Piers Morgan: "He said something to me that made me believe him, when he said it wasn't a willful act on his part to pump himself up. In other words, it was kind of accidental."

Ergh. This from the guy who invited conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on his show to speak for America's gun owners. Next witness?

Geraldo Rivera, here to draw us a map of the Iraq incident . . .

Eh, maybe he's not the right supporting character witness to draw a line in the sand over this controversy. Let's move on to the next witness?

Michael Moore: "In the post-9/11 years, he did the nightly news hour on MSNBC/CNBC, and he was one of the few people in TV news who would allow an opposition voice such as mine on the air. I remember thinking this is a man with integrity."

Hey, Bobby Jindal and Rand Paul, At Least You're Doing Better than Williams!

For those who say I only write nice things about Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, my piece on the homepage this morning points out the hard truth that despite his increasingly prominent role in GOP politics in the Obama era, he's starting at 2 or 3 percent in all of the key polls, and anywhere from 40 to 50 percent of Republicans feel like they don't really know much about him.

In other 2016 news, notice this inconvenient, and strict, little detail in Kentucky state law:

No candidate's name shall appear on any voting machine or absentee ballot more than once, except that a candidate's name may appear twice if he is a candidate for a primary or a regular election and also a candidate to fill a vacancy in the same office required to be filled at a special election, when the special election to fill a vacancy is scheduled for the regular election day.

On the face of it, this law makes it impossible for Kentucky senator Rand Paul to be the GOP nominee and a candidate for reelection to the Senate simultaneously. Paul already filed papers for Senate reelection.

I am told that it is difficult to get a candidate's name off the ballot in Kentucky once officially nominated, which could put Kentucky Republicans in a problematic spot if Paul were to win the GOP presidential nomination. I'm told the only ways a candidate can be removed at that point are death (well, we certainly hope that doesn't happen to Senator Paul!) or declaration of legal insanity. (Insert your preferred joke here.)

There's another option: "Sen. Rand Paul and Kentucky Republicans are exploring the possibility of turning the state's presidential primary into a caucus instead — a move that could allow him to run for both his Senate seat and president in 2016."

I've Seen Thicker Skin on Microbes

We have the wrong guy as president, example 9,987:

Perhaps Axelrod's juiciest yarn—at least for some the self-absorbed, self-dramatizing pundits who traffic in the journalism biz—concerns a visit Maureen Dowd paid to the candidate on the 2008 Obama campaign plane.

"When we brought her to the front of the plane," Axelrod writes, "Obama proceeded to blister her for a previous column she had written. No one got under Barack's skin more than Maureen . . . He was patronizing and disrespectful . . . After that awkward encounter, she seemed to take particular delight in psychoanalyzing Barack and belittling him in print, which only deepened his contempt . . . 'Why are you friends with her?' he would demand after Maureen sent one of her acid darts his way."

ADDENDA: This week on the pop-culture podcast, Mickey White and I welcome a special guest, Ed Morrissey of Hot Air, discussing his and his wife's work with Marriage Encounter and what's challenging married couples today. We aim for a range on that podcast, but we have our usual frivolity fuming about the Grammy Awards, romantic comedies' lack of interest in portraying life after marriage, and the best -- and worst -- relationship advice we've ever heard.

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Somewhere Roger Goodell Is Saying, ‘Man, They Came Down Hard on Brian Williams!’

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