Brian Williams is an honest man, says … Dan Rather

Allah:

When Dan Rather tells you that something is trustworthy, you can take that shizz to the bank.

Like Williams, Rather has been the subject of public controversy. In 2004, he was forced to retract a report on George W. Bush’s National Guard service after the authenticity of his source documents were called into question. Rather retired from CBS News the following year, ending a 24-year run as anchor of the Evening News. He now anchors ‘Dan Rather Reports’ on the cable channel AXS.

“I don’t know the particulars about that day in Iraq,” Rather told POLITICO. “I do know Brian. He’s a longtime friend and we have been in a number of war zones and on the same battlefields, competing but together. Brian is an honest decent man, an excellent reporter and anchor–and a brave one. I can attest that — like his predecessor Tom Brokaw — he is a superb pro, and a gutsy one.”

He’s guilty as charged, in other words. I think we’re already at the “second apology” stage of this clusterfark, just because the first apology that Williams offered last night was itself misleading. Per Ben Shapiro, Williams clarified that he wasn’t in the chopper that was hit by an RPG but was in a “following aircraft” and that “we all landed after the ground fire incident and spent two harrowing nights in a sandstorm in the Iraq desert.” That makes it sound like he was part of the same convoy as the chopper that was attacked, which means he was still in danger, if not quite as much danger as he at first implied. In reality, he was in a different convoy that landed an hour later, and soldiers who actually were stranded for two nights in that sandstorm don’t remember seeing Williams after he and his crew initially disembarked to take photos of the damaged chopper. If, as expected, he apologizes again at greater length on tonight’s NBC newscast, he’ll presumably address these little white lies — but then, if he cops to having misled viewers in his first apology, what’s left of his credibility? He can’t do that, right?

Via Mediaite, here’s CNN anchorman Chris Cuomo at 2:30 refusing to defend Williams — can’t blame this on the “fog of war,” he acknowledges — but kinda sorta defending him anyway by complaining that “they” are starting to “eat him alive.”

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