Brian Williams is taking some incoming fire this morning for his comment last night, regarding the American missile attack on an airfield in Syria, in which he quoted Leonard Cohen on “the beauty of our weapons.” But I understand what he means. There is a terrible beauty, for example, in a hydrogen bomb explosion. About fifty years ago, Life magazine had a two-page spread with a color photo of an H-bomb test explosion, and it was indeed beautiful despite its awful implications. But perhaps last night was not the optimal moment to wax poetic over the beauty of our ordnance being fired off.
