“I am guided by the beauty of our weapons,” Williams said, a lyric from Cohen’s 1988 song “First We Take Manhattan.” He added, “They are beautiful pictures of fearsome armaments making a brief flight.” 
 
 Watch Williams’ segment below. I think it's time for Brian Williams to get fired again. Thursday’s strike was the first U.S. military action targeting the Bashar Assad regime in Syria, which Trump cast as retaliation for Assad’s most recent chemical attack on his own people. “They are beautiful pictures of fearsome armaments making what is for them what is a brief flight over to this airfield.” 
 
 The comments were made while video provided by the Pentagon of Tomahawk missiles launched by U.S. warships towards the Syrian air base was being shown.
– It's been awhile since "Brian Williams" and "controversy" have been uttered in the same sentence, but might as well take a crack at it again now that we're solidly in 2017. The MSNBC newscaster was among those providing commentary Thursday night after the US launched dozens of Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airfield, and while responses to the strike ran the gamut from "decisive" to "unlawful," Williams used a descriptor that few (if any others) did, per Adweek. "I am tempted to quote the great Leonard Cohen: 'I am guided by the beauty of our weapons,'" Williams waxed poetic (Variety notes it's a line from Cohen's "First We Take Manhattan"), as a video in the background showed the missiles hurtling from the US warships toward land. "They are beautiful pictures of fearsome armaments making what is for them what is a brief flight over to this airfield," he continued. But instead of swooning over his lyrical analysis, most of the internet came down on Williams for what appeared to be a glamorization of a wartime maneuver. One commenter called it "obscene enjoyment," while Matt Pearce of the Los Angeles Times called the segment "surreal." Others called Williams a "dope" or said he should be fired again. One person who didn't seem to mind Williams' take: Malcolm Nance, the intel expert who was on air with Williams during his soliloquy-like sermon. "He has an extremely calming effect in serious crises," tweeted Nance. (Congress members are split on how they feel about the strike.)