I’ll start this post by noting that if Brian Williams is found to have lied about his experiences in Iraq, it’s a serious issue that needs to be addressed. But doubt remains about whether he deliberately embellished his story or is suffering from a false memory — a very common problem.

Having said that, I’ve been looking at some right wing blog posts about Williams today, and laughing. Out loud, even. Because these loons are getting more and more ridiculous with their over-reaching smear attempts. (Of course, it doesn’t matter to the right wing audience; they’ll swallow any kind of slop these bloggers feed them and regurgitate it for years without caring whether it’s true or not.)

Here’s one example, at the hate site built by Andrew Breitbart, where editor John Nolte has a real GOTCHA for Brian: Brian Williams and the Amazing, Evolving Walter Mondale College Dropout Tale - Breitbart.

Nolte pulls out two quotes, from an Esquire interview in 2005, and a Star-Ledger article in 2009. In the Esquire interview, Williams says:

One day, I’m at the copy machine in the White House and Walter Mondale comes up behind me and clears his throat. A classic throat-clearing. I thought people only did that in movies, but it turns out vice-presidents do it, too. Anyway, it makes for an exceptionally good morning, and I run from the White House to the GW campus for class. I’m still wearing my West Wing hard pass on a chain, and when my professor sees it, he admits that he’s only been to the White House on the public tour. And I thought to myself, This is costing me money that I don’t have, and I’m a young man in too much of a hurry. So I left school.

In the Star-Ledger article, writer Peggy McGlone describes this sequence of events slightly differently:

But then a friend invited him to drive to Washington, D.C., for a weekend, and everything changed. Smitten with the city and its youthful energy, Williams decided to move there. He transferred what credits he could from Brookdale to Catholic University and took a job in the public relations department to help pay his expenses. He landed an internship at the White House, and when that ended, he answered an ad for a clerking job at a broadcasting association.

Nolte goes for the score:

In the Esquire interview, Williams makes it sound as though his dramatic run-in with then-Vice President Walter Mondale resulted in an immediate decision to drop out of college. Yet, according to the tale he told the Star-Ledger, he did not drop out until after the White House internship ended and he had answered an ad that resulted in an introduction with the head of a local television station in Kansas.

GOTCHA, BRIAN! Hah. Try to get out of that one, you left wing radical news anchor!

Do I have to point out that the first quote consists of Williams’ own words, but the second quote is a writer’s summary of events — not Williams’ own words? This is so ludicrous it boggles the mind, but that’s normal for the clowns at Breitbart “News.”

Oh, and there’s a credit at the end of Nolte’s post:

Dan Riehl’s original research contributed to this report.

You mean this Dan Riehl?

It’s a bucket brigade of stupid.