Nightly News

I sometimes wonder about Brian Williams, Brokaw's impending replacement. I always found him amiable and funny on his many appearances on Conan, but over the last months some of his comments in interviews have raised my eyebrows a bit. The first I remember is after Reagan's death, when the networks began a two-week orgy of hagiographical coverage, and even some network anchors were admitting that the country had long since reached the Reagan saturation point. Williams was very vocal about how it certainly was appropriate to dedicate constant airtime for two weeks to the death of this man, and basically that there was nothing to apologize for.

Williams was just on Leno and he made a peculiar jab at blue-staters that Leno sort of let slide with an "ooookay" and a change of subject. Talking about the need for red-staters and blue-staters to start a national conversation so as to end the polarization in our country, he added that some people just "can't understand why a family would send their son to Falluja to fight so hard". First of all, I don't think that disillusionment with the Iraq war is split down partisan lines, though if that were his only argument I would let it go. It seems to be a more general type of cheap shot at people on the left, i.e. that red-staters are up for fighting the good fight and that liberals are home biting their pillows. To put it another way, that liberals aren't even familiar with the concept of sacrifice for ideals. Make up your own mind by watching it here, and let me know what you think. This guy is about to become the anchor of the highest-rated news program in the country.