Brian Williams (3)

In short, I believe Williams grafted soldiers’ experience of being shot down into his own memory and made it his own due to an unconscious habit of hero worship. To use a popular term (without wanting to echo its derisive sense – I kind of feel sorry for Williams), he is a ‘wannabe.’ A society with a word like ‘wannabe’ is a society in which some professions or experiences are more real than others, and attract imitators. ‘wannabe’ is used to police the line. His mistake/lie is not his alone, though: society as a whole has increasingly viewed the military as a bastion of virtue and power deserving of admiration even as other institutions of government and religion are viewed with cynicism.