Brian Williams should be our poet laureate. He brings his unique creative genius to NBC every evening, eager to share with us the matters of fact.
For example, his take on the Fort Dix six. (You have to sit through an ad, but it's worth it.) Here's a snippet of what he had to say:
Good evening. A lot of government officials from the president on down have hinted over the years that if we ever really knew about all the unsubstantiated national security threats that are out there, we'd never leave our homes in the morning. Of course most of those threats pass without us ever knowing about them, but this morning as millions of Americans were leaving home for work they heard about this story...six young men in their twenties, accused of planning to shoot up...Fort Dix in New Jersey. The FBI says this was a case of home grown terrorism inspired by the internet and thankfully foiled.
Man, he's good. Bush and Cheney should take lessons.
But you really appreciate what a spectacular artist Williams is when you learn that the Fort Dix six were pretty much in the same league as the Seas of David cult, who, armed with a blackjack, a knife, and paintball guns, plotted to take over the entire world.
Steven Levitt, who might not be as great a poet as Williams, makes a lot more sense:
If your goal is to kill people other than yourselves, I cannot think of a worse plan than having six people conduct an armed assault against a military base.
Williams would have been wise to begin his newscast with a bit less poetry, and a bit more thought.
Then again, maybe he's just trying to scare us into watching NBC Nightly News more often. That's how he pays his bills, after all.
© Jed Lewison