The Most Interesting News of the Day

The story of Brian Williams of NBC News telling a lie about being in a helicopter in Iraq that was hit by RPG fire twelve years ago is far from the most important story of the moment, but it is extraordinarily interesting nevertheless.  Today, the new facts on the table are that Williams also lied about events in New Orleans during hurricane Katrina.  Williams famously talked about being in a five star hotel in the French Quarter and seeing a body float by in the flood waters in the street below.  The New Orleans papers are pointing out today that the French Quarter (which is the original high ground on which the city was founded) was never underwater.  Indeed, there was no flooding of any sort in that area.  Williams also talked about getting dysentery from accidentally drinking flood waters.  The same New Orleans papers quoted a variety of doctors in the area who were part of the public health efforts at the time; these doctors said that there had not been even a single case of dysentery during the month after Katrina.  In short, they don't believe Williams story of the illness.  Then there's Williams' story how he was confronted by an armed gang in the stairwell of that same five star hotel in the French Quarter and how they were held off by the armed guards who were with Williams.  Here, there is no clear refutation, but there is the fact that there were no reports of any violence or crime at that hotel during the crisis.  Perhaps the armed gang operated with such stealth that no one noticed them other than Williams.  That's not very likely, however.

So Williams is being exposed as a pathological liar when it comes to his own experiences as a reporter.  The Iraq lie burnished his credentials as a war correspondent; that is certain.  His Katrina reports basically made his career and assured him the position as head of the NBC Evening News.  Who knows what other lies there were.

As this story spreads, the days of Williams as news anchor at NBC are numbered.