Hindustan Times (Delhi)

After Williams and O’Reilly, US secy ‘sexed up’ resume

- Yashwant Raj letters@hindustant­imes.com

WASHINGTON: A member of US President Barack Obama’s cabinet has joined a growing group accused of embellishi­ng their resume by confessing he lied about serving in the US special forces.

“I made a mistake and I apologise for it,” Robert McDonald, secretary for veterans affairs, said at a news conference.

McDonald had told a homeless veteran, who had actually served in the special forces, that he was with the elite US group too. McDonald said he made the remark “to make him feel comfortabl­e”.

Just a bit of harmless embellishm­ent? It would have been had it not come at a time when two leading news personalit­ies in the US have come under a cloud for exactly that.

In early February, US military personnel called out NBC anchor Brian Williams, who helmed America’s most watched nightly news show, for bragging that while covering the war in Iraq in 2003 a military helicopter he was riding came under enemy fire.

Williams backtracke­d when Star and Stripes, a publicatio­n on US military, reported the real story. “I made a mistake in recalling the events of 12 years ago… I want to apologise. I said I was travelling in an aircraft that was hit by an RPG. I was instead in a following aircraft… I don’t know what screwed up in my mind.”

As questions were raised on

BILL O’REILLY Fox News anchor’s claim that he reported from ‘combat situation’ in Falkland War in 1982 challenged. He now says he never said he was on Falkland Islands but reported from Buenos Aires

his other stories — especially his coverage of hurricane Katrina in Louisiana — NBC took him off air and then suspended him.

But Williams’ story was overshadow­ed last week when newsmagazi­ne Mother Jones questioned Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly’s coverage of the Falklands War in 1982.

The anchor, who was then with CBS news, said he had reported from “combat situation”, which Mother Jones said was a stretch by at least 1,200 miles as very reporters ever reached the Falkaland Islands.

O’Reilly has since said he never claimed to be on the island but was “in a war zone in Argentina” and reported from Buenos Aires like the other reporters.

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