Dan Gainor: Brian Williams' Claims a Case of 'Stolen Valor'

NBC News anchor Brian Williams' admission that his helicopter was not shot down in the early days of the Iraq War is a case of "stolen valor" and is "like wearing metals that don't belong to you," Media Research Director Dan Gainor told Newsmax TV Thursday.

"This is him claiming the mantle of risk that our military people go through every day," Gainor told "America's Forum" host J.D. Hayworth. "He manufactured this. It wasn't just 'I casually made a mistake.' No, he made it up."

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Gainor said that even though Williams has apologized, that should not mollify complaints from veterans, and compared Williams' comments to claims made by Hillary Clinton back in 2008, when she said she'd landed in Bosnia under sniper fire.

Williams' story, meanwhile, has changed so much over the years, that it's become a "classic tell-tale" like that of a fisherman who says he "caught a fish and it was big," but 12 years later, it's even bigger, Gainor said.

"That's what's going on here, except that Williams forgets the key thing: the fisherman didn't have video cameras aimed at him, but Williams does every single night," said Gainor.

However, he does not think NBC will fire Williams over the story, as the network has too much invested in him. Instead, he expects Williams to go on hiatus, because "that's what NBC likes to do."

Gainor also Thursday defended Fox News.com's decision to show the entire video of Islamic State terrorists burning their Jordanian pilot prisoner alive, saying that "how else are we to realize just how sophisticated these monsters are?"

And as horrific as the video is, said Gainor, "it looks like a sophisticated video game." He believes the pilot was drugged up, but still used to "narrate the video."

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