Brian Williams Draws Ire Quoting Leonard Cohen to Describe “Beautiful” Syrian Airstrikes

Last night, the United States launched a missile strike in Syria in response to a deadly chemical attack earlier this week that killed dozens, including many children. As The Washington Post points out, news anchor Brian Williams, covering the strike last night on MSNBC, was roundly criticized for repeatedly using the word “beautiful” to describe Pentagon-provided footage of the missiles, including a quote from Leonard Cohen’s song “First We Take Manhattan,” from his 1988 album I’m Your Man.

Williams said, “We see these beautiful pictures at night from the decks of these two U.S. Navy vessels in the Eastern Mediterranean. I am tempted to quote the great Leonard Cohen: ‘I’m guided by the beauty of our weapons.’ And they are beautiful pictures of fearsome armaments making what is, for them, a brief flight over this airfield.” He then asked his guest, “What did they hit?” 

Williams’ comments were denounced across the internet last night and this morning. See some reactions here.

As The Washington Post points out, in a 1988 interview, Cohen said:

It is a terrorist song. I think it’s a response to terrorism. There’s something about terrorism that I’ve always admired. The fact that there are no alibis or no compromises. That position is always very attractive. I don’t like it when it’s manifested on the physical plane—I don’t really enjoy the terrorist activities… I remember there was a great poem by Irving Layton that I once read, I’ll give you a paraphrase of it. It was “well, you guys blow up an occasional airline and kill a few children here and there,” he says. “But our terrorists, Jesus, Freud, Marx, Einstein.” The whole world is still quaking…

As Spin points out, Cohen also spoke about the song again in a 1992 interview. He said:

I felt for some time that the motivating energy, or the captivating energy, or the engrossing energy available to us today is the energy coming from the extremes. That’s why we have Malcolm X. And somehow it’s only these extremist positions that can compel our attention. And I find in my own mind that I have to resist these extremist positions when I find myself drifting into a mystical fascism in regards to myself. [Laughs] So this song, “First We Take Manhattan,” what is it? Is he serious? And who is we? And what is this constituency that he’s addressing? Well, it’s that constituency that shares this sense of titillation with extremist positions.

I’d rather do that with an appetite for extremism than blow up a bus full of schoolchildren.

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