I updated Friday’s Brian Williams story to reflect some of the late-afternoon news about his situation at NBC News. Williams has been NBC’s golden goose for a long time – he’s popular with advertisers, he’s a company man, he supports NBC’s talent and their corporate suits. He gets paid handsomely for it too ($10 million a year). Which might be why NBC News had no idea how to proceed with the clusterwhoops that has unraveled over the past week. On Friday, NBC News’ president Deborah Turness issued a public statement saying that Williams had apologized to NBC corporate and the NBC News staffers for bringing so much heat to the news division. Turness also said that NBC would be investigating Williams, in what I’m assuming will be an in-house OMG-how-many-times-has-he-lied hush-hush investigation. It’s also being said that NBC has told Williams to cool it with any outside appearances (like being a guest on The Daily Show or The Tonight Show) until further notice.

Meanwhile, the knives are out. And it’s not just limited to NBC’s in-house investigation either. People – mostly conservative bloggers, media watchdog groups and anyone in News Corp – are pouring over every public statement Williams has ever made, in interviews, chat show appearances, etc. There are already some problems. People have been Truth-Squading the hell out of Williams’ various stories about what went down in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. Williams told several different versions of what sounds like a completely fabricated story about a man committing suicide inside the Superdome. Williams also told stories of armed gangs running amok during Katrina, when those stories were just… really conflated, if not totally false.

Page Six also ran a series of stories questioning the authenticity of several other anecdotes from Williams’ TV appearances. Like, he claimed he left a dying friend’s bedside to cover the death of Princess Diana. He also claimed that as a teenage volunteer fireman, he rescued either one puppy or two puppies – the number of puppies changes every time he tells the story. #Wasthereevenonepuppy #BrianWilliamsMisremembersPuppies

And finally, as the clusterwhoops grows each passing day, Williams has finally realized (for once) that he should not be the story. He issued a statement on NBCNews.com on Saturday saying that “it has become painfully apparent to me that I am presently too much a part of the news, due to my actions.” He’s says: “I have decided to take myself off of my daily broadcast for the next several days, and Lester Holt has kindly agreed to sit in for me to allow us to adequately deal with this issue. Upon my return, I will continue my career-long effort to be worthy of the trust of those who place their trust in us.” Ooooh, Lester Holt. I LOVE LESTER HOLT. If they do fire Williams, Lester Holt should get the anchor position. I’ve always had Holt on the top of my list of Matt Lauer replacements for the Today Show, but having Holt permanently replace Williams doesn’t sound too bad.

Photos courtesy of WENN.