On NBC’s Today Show, during a segment called Today’s Professionals, Matt Lauer questioned Star Jones, Donny Deutsch and Dr. Nancy Snyderman about MSNBC’s Chris Hayes’ comment on The Meaning of Memorial Day, which questioned the overuse of the term hero when describing fallen soldiers.
“I feel… uncomfortable, about the word because it seems to me that it is so rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war. Um, and, I don’t want to obviously desecrate or disrespect memory of anyone that’s fallen, and obviously there are individual circumstances in which there is genuine, tremendous heroism, you know, hail of gunfire, rescuing fellow soldiers, and things like that. But it seems to me that we marshal this word in a way that is problematic. But maybe I’m wrong about that.”
The panel instantly disagreed with Hayes’ remarks.
“To say that, and by the way he … looks like a weenie, these guys are risking their lives, they are heroes?beginning, middle and end of story,” Deutsch said.
Jones mentioned the inappropriateness of the comment due to the fact that Hayes was interviewing Lt. Col Steve Beck who, as a former Marine, had to notify families that their soldiers had been killed.
“I’m not sure he was criticizing the young men and women, he was just saying that the word is overused,” Lauer said.
Snyderman was quick to retort, “But he’s wrong.”
Hayes apologized for the comments Monday.
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