Brian Williams: Weasel

How's this for a Durbinesque non-apology apology?

And on this busy day I'm compelled to throw in a personal note of my own... it's about a question I asked Andrea Mitchell on Nightly News last night. Coming out of the story alleging that Iran's President-elect may have been among those who kept 52 Americans hostage for 444 days in Tehran, I asked Andrea the following question:

"What would it all matter if proven true? Someone brought up today: The first several U.S. presidents were certainly revolutionaries... and might have been called "terrorists" at the time by the BRITISH CROWN, after all..."

Today, apparently, on some radio talk shows and blogs, my friends in the media have accused me of labeling George Washington a terrorist. They apparently missed my point: That the BRITISH CROWN might have viewed American revolutionaries that way.

My question — and specifically the line, "what would it all matter..." was meant to address the popular support within Iran for those who acted against the U.S. and are now in positions of power. Those of you who are regular readers of our blog know we spoke about this very issue yesterday in our afternoon editorial meeting.

All I ask is that people re-read what was said on the air. I've talked to several viewers today, and one conversation I actually enjoyed was with a woman from Virginia, who said, "These days, you just can't use the word TERRORIST for anything but a TERRORIST." And I take this nice woman's point about the power of words in our current climate.

While I insist that a re-reading of my question will prove that in no way was I calling the framers "terrorists" (for starters, the word did not exist 229 years ago), I regret that anyone thought that after a life spent reading and loving American history, I had suddenly changed my mind about the founders of our nation.

Yes, Brian, your intellectual powers are far beyond those of us who don't have the constant stress of reading the big words off the screen while keeping our hair---perfectly---immobile.

Of course, you might help your case if you could cite any primary literature wherein the British Crown used the word "terrorist" to refer to the Colonials. Rebels, yes; traitors, possibly; terrorists? Doubt it seriously.

But given your desire to be the light of the dinner party as chief recycler of the tired cliche "one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter", perhaps you might simply look up the word in the dictionary and ascertain its precise meaning that way?

Or have your little Breck batman do it for you. Either way.