Blogger Cenk Uygur, host of The Young Turks, the largest online news program, wrote a somewhat different take on the Brian Williams problem of doctoring up his war experience as a journalist in Iraq. Uygur wrote:
"People think that Brian Williams is the problem
because he exaggerated a war story about Iraq? Are you kidding me? The
whole war was based on a monstrous lie that almost the entire media
enabled and perpetuated. That's the real problem.
"If the rest of
the press scapegoat Williams and feign righteous indignation over his
lie, as they are in the middle of doing now, it will be unbearable.
Where were all of those people when we were being sold a bill of goods
on Iraq? Oh I know, on air. They sold us those lies en masse. So, please
don't pretend you have integrity now. Please don't pretend that the
real problem is an exaggeration about a tiny story in the middle of the
war.
"Sixty-nine percent of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was personally responsible for 9/11 when we invaded Iraq. That is the biggest failure of the media
I have ever seen. Has anyone apologized for that yet? Has anyone been
fired for that yet? If you want to fire all the executives and editors who let that lie be sold to the American people through their media
outlets, then I'm a 100% with you. Then we can also fire Brian Williams. . . . "
Amen to that. Of course, the big problem with what Williams did has to do with his personal credibility going forward. But Uygur is absolutely right in saying this pales in comparison with the Big Lie that started the whole Iraq thing.
Ralph
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