Come on! What the hell. It’s like the run up to the Iraq war all over again. The media not stating the truth and following along. Why can’t these guys call a spade a spade, and when someone does it they jump on him. This is madness! 

What is Brian Williams’ main objective?

I’m confused.  Everyone knows this was an elective war; what on earth is the story here?

Racist !

Agreed!

Williams looks a little tired…I wonder if he was up all night worrying that he supports the killing of innocent babies.
What a Liberal smuck!!

“As such, viewers may have got the sense that Williams was aiming to split the difference between Joe Scarborough‘s call for lessened partisan bickering and rhetorical grenades, and Tavis Smiley‘s simple assertion that the Bush Administration lied the U.S. into an unnecessary war.”

Thank you Colby for letting us know your OPINION that this is a “simple” assertion.

Brian Reynolds may have “split the difference”,  but the “great historian” that Brian adjured for help in clarifying his own position, came down soundly on one side.

“We should not go to find monsters to detroy”-John Quincy Adams. Is the best line in clip. It says it all!

Aren’t all wars elective wars?  You choose to go to war or you don’t.  

To report facts.

Brian, our war with Germany from 1940-1945 was also elective.
You’re not even a competent “newsreader”.

I trust Brian Williams beacuse of his many cameo appearances on 30 Rock and SNL . If he stars performing dinner theater , I think he may be electable .

Pearl Harbor? The war of 1812? I am a pacifist at heart. But sometimes it can not be avoided. Iraq could has been avoided.

Hard to take Brian Williams seriously. He looks like Droopy the hound-dog.

The side of facts?

People forget that in the hours after the Oklahoma City bombing, media reports said attention was being focused on an Iraqi businessman who left Oklahoma City on a flight that morning.

Why is this important?

It’s important because it shows that just beneath the surface of calm and stability, there was a conscious, deliberate intent to cast all terrorism in the direction of Saddam Hussein.  Some Americans knew we were going back to Iraq… at our first opportunity.

When the towers collapsed in 2001, everyone blamed Osama bin Laden.  Others knew the anger could be mobilized to topple Saddam.

Sorry sir, But that is rhetorical BS. -Smithers

There’s a slight difference considering that Germany and Italy declared war on us.
Following that, we made our own declaration. They aren’t analogous.

Yes.

another filthy liberal news fake from GE.  nbc,msnbc, cnbc networks of constant agenda. Liberal loon agenda.

To garner more cameos .

I thought you supported WW2? Hitler didn’t bomb us. The Japanese did.  Hitler declared war on the US after our deceleration of war on the Japanese…but NEVER attacked the US. Were we doing the right thing in looking for the monster that was Hitler without being attacked by Germany?

PS… I don’t agree with Iraq war but I loose it when the left tries to re-write history (like Clinton supporting the WMD intel). And yes BOTH sides are doing it.

Agreed!

Hey, liberals are a-ok with Obama sending drones into countries we’re not at war with, killing innocent men, women and children, as long as nobody’s getting waterboarded.

Ojective: liberal agenda of NBC and MSNBC so he can get another GE paycheck.  You know GE big O-Bam-A friend.. GE who dont pay taxes, gets appointed to job/labor Prez groups while sending jobs and deals to China.   Filthy liberal liars.

Facts as seen through the eyes of liberal loons.

I’m confused about the headline.  A more accurate one would be “Reynolds Asks For History’s Validation, Gets Schooled”

Watch the video.  Unlike Reynolds, Meachum does not equivocate in denouncing the notion that Bush misled or lied.

You seem suspecting, unbelieving and uptight. Why?

I suspect that you need to watch the video.

I don’t know what happened to the video, but it’s great! 

Reynolds tries to be weasel equivocating, calls on “great historian” Jon Meacham for nuance in that, and ends up hearing Meacham’s explicit and clear denunciation of the Bush misled-lied accusation.

DECLARATION OF WAR BY GERMANY AND ITALY AGAINST THE UNITED
STATES

The Speaker laid before the House the following message from the President of
the United States, which was read:

“To the Congress of the United States:

On the morning of December 11 1941. The Government of Germany, pursuing its
course of world conquest, declared war against the United States.”

The long known and the long expected has thus taken place. The forces
endeavoring to enslave the entire world now are moving toward this hemisphere.

They decared war on us!

His many cameo apperances .

That would be too much like Ronald Reagan all over again. It was Kinda like having John Wayne and Beavers dad (Hugh Beaumont) for a President.

Bush didn’t “lie” us into anything. The intelligence was just wrong.

I believe you have him confused with Joe Lieberman.

Nice retort. Being totally non partisan in your statements.

I watched just about the entire show this morning including the above clip as well. I saw it twice.

It must suck to be popular and have so many shows that  want you to appear. Brian Williams is a very likeable person.He does cameos from time to time. Big deal. I suspect it may be his point of view you dislike.

You seem suspecting, unbelieving and uptight. Why?

The intelligence was just wrong.(George Bush’s)……………LOL

There’s an old saying in Tennessee – I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee – that says, fool me once, shame on – shame on you. Fool me – you can’t get fooled again.- George H W Bush…….LOL

Rant Much?   

Uptight….not. You must be an X-files fan. You Know “The truth is out there”   

Lieberman even sounds like Doopy Dog…. “Going up Sir? ”-Roger Rabbit  

    Perry sounds kinda like Deputy Dog.

12voltman1 28 minutes ago in reply to tws258

It must suck to be popular and have so many shows that  want you to appear. Brian Williams is a very likeable person.He does cameos from time to time. Big deal. I suspect it may be his point of view you dislike.

Sorry 12voltman1, wrong guess. Would you like to go for Double Jeopardy where the scores can really change ?

It can also set you free . Food for thought  .

general electric.  totally liberal.

lol.

   If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.- Notebook,
1894

Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.
-
Following the Equator, Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar-Mark Twain

Who is Reynolds?

A wiser man than I, and there are but a few of those, said, “Bush Lied, People Died.” I concur.

That was one of W’s moments of great insight and wisdom.

No one died when Clinton lied.   

Brian Williams should keep his opinion comments to himself because it gives the righties reason to lambast him for being a liberal, and thereby putting out liberal messages in the NBC network nightly news.  And for him to call Iraq a “war of choice” seems to infer that he believes Bush could’ve “chosen” not to go to war with Iraq.  But what’s done is done.

For people like Tavis Smiley, they will always believe Bush/Cheney “lied” us into an unnecessary war.  Meacham’s comments were very thoughtful and correct, I believe, on how Bush honestly believed based on available intel that the best route was to go to war with Iraq to stop the spread of WMD and terrorism.

For those left wienies who believe Bush/Cheney lied or deceived us, go back and read articles and editorials from the Washington Post and N.Y. Times from about 1998 up to 9/11.  It seems you have forgotten how Saddam Hussein was perceived as almost a madman, with a strong desire to build and stockpile WMD for use against, among others, the United States.  With that backdrop leading up to 9/11, it didn’t take much bad intelligence to put two and two together (perhaps wrongly, but not deceptively) and come to a decision that Iraq was or would soon be working with Al Qaeda and that imminent war to defeat this effort was necessary (and not a “choice” if we wanted to defeat the bad guys “over there” instead of here at home).

These things are going to be rehashed probably for years to come.  But each one of us chooses our own particular set of facts and half-truths and logic to arrive at the conclusions we have on these issues.  At this point arguing about this stuff is really fruitless.  But the cable networks will keep on doing this because it’s good argument for ratings purposes.

Brian Williams bowed to Obama; nothing he says can be taken seriously.  He adores the sitting POTUS and everything he says is said through the prism of an extreme liberal perspective.  He is NBC, the national Barak Channel.

What makes you think that ALL libs support killing babies.  Statements like this are outright lies.  I don’t care if the left or the right person does it.  It’s a lie.

Here you go again.  YOU LIE

Yea right!

Well, you can have another country attack you or declare war on you first. Then you’re at war. It’s not elective.

–Cobra

So you have the same point of view. Are you jealous? What the big deal about cameo’s?   

Saddam did not attack us. He did not have the ability or capability to attack us. We decided to kick his butt because we though we could. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.

 You can tell the neocons and teabaggers that until they are blue in their face and they still wouldn’t believe you. No matter how many facts their are to prove it, they just want to believe a lie. Nothing you can do about it.

Your argument is worthless. Learn something:http://www.drstevebest.org/Essays/bushswaronterror.pdf   I know it’s hard to believe but try. Ok.

Hanging around Tricky Dick Cheney too much. How that man can lie thru his teeth and not feel an ounce of guilt about what he did is beyond anyone.

You’re right Neal, they aren’t “exactly” analogous.
Unfortunately, Brian Williams is just attempting to make a political point, not to inform us about our defense policy. 

You don’t have to fight back. Therefore, it is elective. You elect whether or not to go to war.

I think the only conclusion is that the Bush Administration did lie – constantly and methodically in a campaign of lies, as supported by the Andy Card comment that “You don’t introduce a new product during the summer months” – but in support of something they actually believed to be true, and in the case of some of them, had believed so for a number of years – even though it wasn’t supported by the public facts, or by the best estimates of the International Atomic Energy Commission, or by best intelligence that the career C.I.A. analysts had and provided to them, or by the fine-grained truth on the ground determined from invading. 

You can go all the way back to 1993 and find that then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney had his then DoD analyst Scooter Libby author a lengthy internal report advocating invasion of Iraq, completed just before the Clinton Administration took over (in what looks like purposeful timing), which was then published in full in 1995 by a war hawk think tank called the PNAC, again over the signature of Scooter Libby, which thereafter was pursued each and every year during the Clinton Administration by lobbyists for and under the PNAC and other organizations like the Friends of Iraq — all of it based on so-called intelligence from the exiled Iraqi Ahmed Chalabi and his group of ex-patriate Iraqis with financial and political interests in and dreams of taking Iraq for themselves.The belief became an article of neocon faith, much like Frank Luntz’ invented phrase “death panels” and a whole host of invented memes that now feature in every Republican presidential candidates debate. And that article of faith came into the Bush White House with Cheney, and Libby, by then an assistant to both him and to President Bush, and infected the place like a virus. It became an article of faith because Cheney, and Libby, and eventually Bush, WANTED it to be true.

 I say this on a non-partisan basis, as history shows a number of administrations started wars on pretexts, like the expansionary wars against the natives and into Florida and against Mexico over Texas, the one into the Phillipines, the one into Viet Nam, this one into Iraq, all of which were unquestionably started on false, or flimsy or mistaken premises, and started by any party that was elected – Democratic-Republican, Whig, Bull Moose, Republican and Democrat.

George W. Bush had better reason than most to want remove Saddam Hussein from power and/or kill him.  Saddam had tried to have President Bush’s father killed during a visit to Kuwait in retaliation for the first Gulf War.  Getting rid of Saddam was probably a good idea.  Staying to rebuild Iraq was a horrible one.

Actually, Saddam Hussein wanted the world to think he had WMD, and worked hard to create that belief.  He thought it would deter Iran from attacking Iraq.

Please get rid of Donnie d.

He is an insult to women. So sorry he has daughters.

You are too smart to have someone like him on your show.

V.Gilliam
Scottsdale,az