...though how he got into my pajamas

In the larger scheme of things, it’s probably not even a blip on your radar, this story about Brian Williams’ of NBC News and his mis-recollections of life during wartime in Iraq over a decade ago. 

To err is human and to forgive is divine; I’m not sure what lying is or how to evaluate an apology for the lie, or “conflate” (as Mr. Williams’ calls it) after being called on it. 

I would point out from my corner of the world that if we hold our elected and/or appointed leaders responsible (and I do) for what they do, and for what they don’t do, it’s only reasonable to me that we hold everyone else as responsible, at least in terms of  integrity and truth-telling.

I’d hope I helped instill in our two children a sense of what is right and what is wrong at least as equal to that as my parents strove to do with me. Perhaps Brian’s parents had a bridge evening when that class at Mom & Dad University was going on.  

Not for me to say, though in the same spirit of full disclosure I persist in insisting for everyone else, I should tell you that while and when I strive for absolute honesty, I sometimes fall short. I rationalize those moments by telling myself I’m probably not alone.

There’s a cliché about people living in glass houses (who should buy stock in Windex) and the biblical admonition to ‘let he who is without sin cast the first stone’ but we’ve become such champions of sloganeering from our Presidential campaigns (elections are won and lost on ten second soundbytes) to the coffee we drink with breakfast, that often I fear we hear but don’t listen.

My somewhat puckish sense of humor was attracted to this hectoring and lecturing analysis of The Life of (the other) Brian as provided in the “entertainment” section of the NY Daily News, which (too) often finishes in a last-place tie with the NY Post as anything other than a fish-wrapper/bird cage liner. My first reaction was remembering the punchline to a bawdy joke, “yeah I know; but you picked the ugliest sheep.”

This, too, shall pass; whether it should or not is best left to others beyond the scale and scope of these scribblings. Mr.  Williams should take solace that he was not in the helicopter with Mrs. Mittelschmerz of Dundee, as that ended very badly. For her.      

-bill kenny