I am Karin, very interesting article that contained the information I was searching for in Google, thanks….

Russ, who’s been on the road the last several days with a sick laptop, writes:If you haven’t read or heard this exchange between Chris Matthews and Brian Williams up right now at Hot Air then here it is: Video: Brian…

Who knows.

And that, Chris, that last aspect, the willingness to take one’s own life. I always tell people there are guys on our team like that, too. They’re called Army Rangers…

The question is what comparison was he trying to establish?
1. Equally brave men?
2. Equally sacrificing men?
3. Equally determined men?

Whatever his equation, and he was unclear, he made the statement either to
1. clarify what he thought the terrorist’s zeal(?) negatively implied about our fighters or
2. to give a message to scare the terrorists

However, his words:

there are guys on our team like that, too

are the giveaway.

‘Too’ is the word that equates their fighters, or their zeal, to ours. ‘Too’ means ‘as good’. It does not mean better. I listened to him and I think he meant his words.

I use substitutions to test such phrases:
>And that, Chris, that last aspect, the willingness of the child molester to take one’s own life in his cause. I always tell people there are guys on our team like that, too. They’re called Army Rangers.

>And that, Chris, that last aspect, the willingness of the SS guard to take one’s own life to cleanse the land of Jews. I always tell people there are guys on our team like that, too. They’re called Army Rangers.

His statement wasn’t innocuous because the first group carries a taint that is inseparable from their motive. Unless he thinks they do not have a taint. So either he equates our men to scum, or he thinks the first group is heros. It could be the flub of a fool, but the left has declared the terrorists are freedom fighters.

I was more intrigued by Matthews saying:

and yet, after having gotten to know us, they want to kill themselves to hurt us. Isn’t that an even deeper conundrum here than the chemicals being used in
these attacks.

conundrum: A paradoxical, insoluble, or difficult problem; a dilemma

I can understand Williams. Matthews is the conundrum to me.
.

Good points, all. If Brian Williams cannot see the differences between the two sides of his analogy then he’s a supreme idiot.

I’m reassessing my analysis of what he originally said. I don’t think he really meant what what he said. After all, he’s just a fool who reads the news.

Williams may have some sort of point in there some where, but if he does it’s buried beneath a whole bunch of idiot.

I think the only difference is that you are attributing the comments to malintent and I’m attributing them to stupidity and the inability to express his point clearly.

You’re pretty much right on our difference on this Rosetta, only I don’t necessarily attribute it to “malintent” on Williams’s part, at least not conscious malintent. I think speaking off the cuff we got the truth about what he believes, but in his mind he didn’t realize how wrong it was to say what he said. He wouldn’t have had a clue had there not been a stink made about it. I believe his line of thinking is so “normal” in his circles, that it didn’t seem like a strange thing to say. Again, I don’t think he was consciously trying to attack heros, but I think that he truly does believe the comparison he made and doesn’t understand why it’s wrong. I feel like his off the cuff speaking just revealed he’s true thinking. If we can say that Mel Gibson truly hates Jews because of his drunken rant, is it so hard to believe that Williams thinks there is equivalency between the heros he listed and terrorists, when he said it sober?

Brian Williams made it perfectly clear that he BELIEVES that terrorists are to be equated with the US military.

It wasn’t accidental. It is, IMHO, a sincere statement of what he believes; a statement that mirrors those of the entire “mainstream” media, both print and broadcast.

He’s a typical example of why the MSM is discredited and why America is turning it’s back on the network news and major print media.

We, the People, are starting to “get it” that the media is a Fifth Column working on behalf of our enemies.

I appreciate your point entirely. I think the only difference is that you are attributing the comments to malintent and I’m attributing them to stupidity and the inability to express his point clearly.

Since he’s the only that knows what he meant, I will just let it go at that.

In any event, I sort of enjoyed being called a leftist.

For the record, that wasn’t me that called you a leftist. I still disagree, and think that Williams was speaking what he truly believes. I maintain that there is no way to spin this:

the willingness to take one’s own life. I always tell people there are guys on our team like that, too. They’re called Army Rangers and Navy Seals and the Special Forces folks and the first responders on 9/11 who went into those buildings knowing, by the way, they weren’t going to come out. So we have players like that on our team.

After saying “willingness to take one’s own life” he says we have guys on our team “like that” too, and lists off many of the bravest groups of people in our country. But the simple fact is that they don’t have a willingness to take their own lives (suicide). They RISK their own lives, they don’t show a willingness to TAKE their own lives. I would say that the military is risking their lives for doing what is right, while someone would argue that the terrorists think that what they’re doing is right… That’s a much longer argument, so leaving that aside, he also mentioned 9/11 first responders. They aren’t attacking anyone, they are simply life savers, plain and simple. For him to say that those guys on “our team” are like the terrorists willing to TAKE their own lives, is ridiculous. They don’t TAKE their own lives but they do RISK them trying to save others. I can’t understand how anyone can take Williams’s statements in any other way than how he said it.

I think every one of the 9/11 terrorists had more physical courage than I do…

Kralizec: You are judging these maniacs from a sane point of view, that is: your own. You understand the value of life and would not strap on a bomb. You understand what you would lose and are aware that you have no right to snatch life from innocents. If you were told that human life is nothing and the fast lane to heaven was to martyr yourself, wouldn’t that make the decision easier?

These fanatics put no value in human life and it doesn’t take courage to give it up for “something better” in their minds. Don’t give them credit. It takes more courage to face life day to day under trying circumstances than it does to opt for “the easy way out.”

If they thought they would die and burn in hell for eternity because of their rotten deeds but still chose to strap themselves with explosives, that would be brave.

Now consider this remark of yours.

Brave? Did he just call suicide bombers brave?

Did you just imply that our enemies have simply no excellent qualities? I maintain that some of our enemies do excel in one way or another. In particular, I think every one of the 9/11 terrorists had more physical courage than I do, and I give Osama bin Ladin points for tactical cleverness (just as I take points away from him for strategic stupidity). If our enemies had no good qualities, they wouldn’t be dangerous, and it wouldn’t make any sense to seek their destruction, as I do.

Thanks for giving ME some benefit of the doubt. I had not watched the video but had only read the text. After your suggestion I did watch the clip.

What he says in the video (and more importantly the way he says it) is so starkly dumb, I guess I just have a hard time believing that he would actually mean something so obviously insane.

Maybe part of it is that as a professional reader, he is practiced at emphatically stating whatever comes out of his mouth as though it were gospel truth. I suppose that’s a good trait when your reading your teleprompter but when you’re speaking extemporaneously, not such a good thing.

In any event, I sort of enjoyed being called a leftist.

From my reading of his comments,…

However I do read this differently

Have you only read it? I still wouldn’t get your position anyway, but perhaps you need to watch the video in the original post. I can’t believe so many people are giving him a pass for unartfully misspeaking. Yes those things happen from time to time, but this is not one of those cases. There is no way to spin what he said.

Now, watch or read (again) his initial comments. Then my first comment I think about sums it up:

First of all, the obvious… He just compared Army Rangers, Navy Seals, Special Forces, and 9/11 First responders to terrorists. No spinning on this one, that’s what he did.

Not that anyone here is stupid enough to need this explanation, but here it is anyway… The members of “our” team that he lists don’t commit suicide in an effort to kill innocent people. Even if you were to give moral equivelency to terrorist and say that none of us are innocent civilians, our guys don’t pyschotically go out to kill themselves to accomplish their mission. Are they willing to die doing what they believe is right? Yes, but they aren’t hoping too.

As for the 9/11 first responders specifically… What an idiot you are Williams. Do you actually believe they went in knowing they wouldn’t come out? For what purpose? They were going in to get people out… if they didn’t come out, neither did the civilians. Are you saying that these first responders didn’t feel like they had a right to live while others died so they just joined the death party?

I understand benefit of the doubt, and don’t mean to go after one of our own here (you) Rosetta, but I just want you to look at his actual words that make it clear it wasn’t a simple case of unartful speaking.

However I do read this differently and I still have a reserve of “benefit of the doubt” for people that seem to have misspoke.

I’m not saying the guy didn’t say something in a very stupid manner, he certainly did. But that’s far different than him meaning what you are ascribing to him.

Clearly that implies a suicidal urge by our military and fire fighters; and just as clearly he was comparing that to the suicide bomber terrorists. I don’t know how Rosetta or anyone else can read it any other way!

But, if someone on the Right said anything close to it Rosetta and others on the Left would be calling for his head on a platter. That is the liberal double standard we live with today.

From my reading of his comments, he seemed to be addressing the idea that the terrorists have an advantage over us in that they will die for their cause and we won’t.

He was trying to refute that idea and he did so inartfully.

I read nowhere in his initial comments or his clarification where he says that our men are the same as the terrorists or that the causes are equivalent. Not what he said at all.

To assume that he meant exactly that, I think is a step too far.

I agree he’s an empty suit and all that but it seems obvious to me he didn’t mean what many of you really seem to want to believe me meant.

There are enough DU glue-sniffers and Kos-kids that actually DO think this that we don’t need to being seeing others where they don’t exist.