Excerpts
from “The Brian Williams Story”, a rumored biography that will now apparently never
see print:
November
9, 1989
“All I can say is that it was an honor and
a thrill to be the only major American news anchor on site when the Berlin Wall
fell. It was a combination of good luck and astute planning that put me there
that night so that I could report this major event back home to our NBC viewing
audience. Or maybe it was Tom Brokaw. The important thing is that we were
there.”
December
1, 2000
“So I turned to W and I said: ‘Hey,
George, I think I know how you can solve this election mess. Just take it to
the Supreme Court. As I see it, you’ve got at least five friends up there and,
from what they’re telling me, they’re more than willing to do you a solid.’ Al
Gore was furious with me for ‘sticking my nose in his business’ as he put it
but he’s since forgiven me and I even secretly helped him get a better
distribution deal on his documentary An
Inconvenient Truth.”
February
6, 2003
“Colin Powell was beside himself. ‘W,
Rummy and Cheney all want me to make the case for going to war with Iraq,’ he
said. ‘But I’m just not sure.’ I could have told him what he wanted to hear,
that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and palled around with Osama bin
Laden but it just wasn’t true and if there’s one thing a world class news
anchor traffics in it’s the truth. So I gave him the straight goods based on my
NBC News intelligence gathering. In the end, of course, he didn’t take my
advice but, to this day, he often reminds me that it was the biggest mistake he
ever made.”
February
6, 2007
“Barack called me in a panic and said he
didn’t know whether he should throw his hat into the ring. After I calmed him
down, I said ‘Barry, look, I can see you’re nervous about taking on Hillary but
I know for a fact that she’s vulnerable and can be beaten.’ He was ecstatic to
get my advice and begged me to join his campaign team but, of course, I
couldn’t. I already had the most important job in America and a responsibility
to bring the news and YouTube videos to those over sixty.”
March
17, 2008
“Everyone was throwing stones at Hillary
and casting doubts on her recollection of her and Chelsea coming under sniper fire
in a war zone in Bosnia in 1996. I called her up and commiserated and we
compared notes about getting shot at. I told her to hang tough. ‘Memory is a
funny thing,’ I said. ‘Sometimes what you remember actually happened and
sometimes it didn’t but if it feels right to you, stick with your story.’”
February
1, 2015
“Pete Carroll and I had been friends for
years even going back to his days as coach of the New England Patriots. He
struggled quite a bit back then so when he ultimately got the Seattle head
coaching position, I vowed to help him out. Every week I passed along a dozen
surefire offensive plays for the upcoming game and Pete couldn’t thank me
enough. But then when he won the Super Bowl in 2014, he seemed to get a bit of
a swelled head and started to ignore some of my advice. Sadly, he chose not to
heed my single admonition for Super Bowl Sunday to never, ever throw an inside
slant pass at the goal line. To his credit, he did call me after and apologize
but sadly I don’t think our friendship will ever be the same.”
