We live in a time where honor and honesty and integrity are well and truly dead. And this story proves it:
NBC News appears to be trying to shame suspended anchorman Brian Williams into resigning, using an orchestrated a series of leaks to save the network the extra expense and complications of firing him, a new report says.
Williams is reportedly under a $50 million contract over the next five years, and there is speculation he would get $20 million to $30 million to leave, reports Politico. If he leaves for $20 million, he'd get less than fifty cents on the dollar for his remaining contract.
It's unclear if the apparent strategy is workable, Politico reports, because the Williams camp believes it can disprove many of the leaks.
Why did NBC suspend Lyin' Brian? Because he got caught in egregious, resume-enhancing lies that embarrassed the network. Did they know about his lies? Either they did and didn't care about them or they didn't but didn't care if he did and didn't care enough to investigate and find out. Either way, NBC had to be complicit in the matter.
Does that explain why they won't do the honest, principled thing and terminate Williams' contract, even if they have to eat most of it? Wouldn't it be in their long term interests to do so? To create at least the appearance of restoring a level of professional integrity to their news product, something that even here and now does retain some value? Or, in other words, throw Williams under the bus? Sure seems that way to me.
They say that there is no honor among thieves. Never has this axiom been more egregiously demonstrated. Brian Williams lied, perpetually, congenitally, so much so that he wasn't even aware he was doing it after some point, and NBC was just fine with it. Then it gets exposed, and the Peacock doesn't take a stand, but engages in even sneakier and more underhanded tactics to try and coerce Williams into voluntarily resigning, thus saving them the eight-figure amount they would otherwise owe him.
It's one big exercise in Kabuki theater to me, since (1) Brian Williams is not the only "news" hack at NBC (or any other Obamedia outlet) to engage in such serial confabulating, and the networks are as perfectly fine with that as NBC was with Lyin' Brian's, and (2) Williams has more money than...well, than I could ever spend, anyway, so it's not like he's staring down the barrel of eventual economic Armageddon. But I will say this: Based on my own recent vocational experiences, wherein I was mistreated in equivalent fashion (harassed and abused in an attempt to get me to quit in order to save my employer some cash) and I stuck around instead and forced them to ax me in order to maximize the monies I had coming to me, I actually find myself rooting for Lyin' Brian at this point. If NBC can't muster the testicular fortitude to fire him, why should he quit and forfeit twenty or thirty mil? The Peacock is getting a taste of what it deserves, if you ask me.
And, contra Dan Rather, we all know that Mr. Williams won't have any difficulty finding another billet in the network news business. Hell, Rather didn't.
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