There have been some idiotic things said by liberal media members surrounding the tenth anniversary of 9/11, and "NBC Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams added to the list Monday.
Appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Williams said, "People forget the crazy pressure to put a flag on your lapel and without it you couldn’t be a patriot. You certainly couldn’t love your country" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
BRIAN WILLIAMS, “NBC NIGHTLY NEWS” ANCHOR: Having listened to a lot of discussions on the war in Iraq in a lot of gatherings, I’ve settled on the word “elective.” It was an elective war on the part of George W. Bush because none of those pilots were Iraqi, because none of the people in those planes were Iraqi, and because as a wounded nation we gave a president in effect a blank check.
People forget what a crazy time it was. People forget that when I left that morning, I paused at the intersection knowing my kids were both in the same school and I didn’t know if there would be another day in America. People forget the crazy pressure to put a flag on your lapel and without it you couldn’t be a patriot. You certainly couldn’t love your country. So that same pressure made for some, some judgments and some permission granted by the American people to their chief executive.
Crazy pressure to put a flag on your lapel? In a time of war, one would think you wouldn't need to be pressured to do such a thing.
Americans have for centuries shown support for those that have died in a recent battle as well as those still serving their nation.
Anyone feeling pressured to do it, especially someone so in the limelight as a national television anchor, mustn't understand the way his fellow citizens feel.
Media members like to talk about how unified we were after the attacks, and how wonderful it would be for such unity to return. "Face the Nation" host Bob Schieffer did so on his program Sunday.
When we look at pictures of Congress singing "God Bless America" on the steps of the Capitol the evening of 9/11, we remember just how much we were one nation that day.
Part of that unity is displaying the flag, and Americans should have instinctually felt a desire to do so.
To ten years after claim that people were being pressured to show their patriotism and love of country following the largest attack on this nation's mainland is pretty despicable even for a liberal media member.
The disgust he should have expressed the morning after the tenth anniversary of this tragedy was for those Americans who believed they were pressured to act in a patriotic fashion and didn't instinctively feel the need to do so following the death of so many of their fellow citizens.
Calling out those that did just adds to the current disunity folks like him regularly blame on the overwhelming majority of Americans that are naturally driven to such displays.
Shame on you, Brian.
