So Hillary Clinton, her campaign sagging as it becomes clearer and clearer that she’s not going to get the Democratic nomination unless she can destroy her opponent, insists she would have quit Barack Obama’s Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago after hearing the allegedly “hateful” words of its pastor, Jeremiah Wright.
But wait a sec. Putting aside the matter of whether what Wright said was even “hateful,” this same Hillary Clinton chose the rabidly anti-semitic Rev. Billy Graham for spiritual mentor in her time of troubles during wayward hubby Bill’s impeachment scandal, and welcomed his offer of support for her senate and presidential bids. This, of course, is the same Billy Graham who was caught on tape telling President Nixon that he thought Jews had a “stranglehold” on the American media, and that if something weren’t “done about it,” the “country’s going down the drain.”
Now that certainly qualifies as hate speech, but it hasn’t bothered candidate Clinton a bit to cozy up to the Rev. Graham.
Well, maybe Clinton just “misspoke” when she said she chose the Rev. Graham as her spiritual mentor. (Isn’t that a lovely euphemism for lying, by the way?)
Misspeaking is her excuse for her latest whopper: the one about her combat experience in war-torn Bosnia.
Clinton, in an Iraq policy speech she gave last week aimed at trying to burnish her claim of 35 years of Washington experience, recalled a 1996 trip to the war-torn former province of Yugoslavia, where Serbs and Croats had been butchering each other and especially Muslims. As she told the tale last week:
"I certainly do remember that trip to Bosnia and ... there was a saying around the White House that if a place was too small, too poor, or too dangerous, the president couldn't go, so send the first lady. That's where we went. I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."
Brave woman!
Then came an embarrassing CBS news clip of that visit, which showed that there was no sniper fire, and that Clinton, who had brought along her daughter Chelsea and the comic Sinbad (apparently it was too dangerous for Bill, but not too dangerous for her daughter or the commedian!), and that all three of them had made a leisurely stroll from the plane with their military escorts and local hosts, even stopping to greet an 8-year-old girl who was on hand to welcome them.
A red-faced Clinton now claims she was “tired” and that she had “misspoken.”
Except that this isn’t the first time she’s told this particular whopper, as she insisted initially. She’s been a serial liar about the Bosnia visit and the mythic snipers.
All of which should raise grave doubts in the minds of primary voters in Pennsylvania and elsewhere about the veracity of her many other claims of foreign policy and White House executive experience—like her clearly and demonstrably inflated claim of having “helped to bring peace to Northern Ireland,” or her equally inflated claim of having "negotiated open borders to let fleeing refugees into safety from Kosovo," and also about her claim to have opposed the passage of the job-killing NAFTA treaty. (Recently revealed Clinton White House appointment records, pried lose by a public interest group Freedom of Information request, show that she in fact actively pushed for NAFTA passage.)
Clinton is now in danger of supplanting Al Gore, who was pilloried for exaggerating his role in “creating” the Internet during his ill-fated run for the White House, as the season’s ace prevaricator. If she were somehow to manage to gain the Democratic nomination, Republicans and GOP candidate John McCain would have a field day with her at this point.
But we should not be surprised at this turn of events. After all, Hillary’s claim to White House experience and her assertion that she’s ready to assume the role of commander in chief “on day one” rests on her having been Bill’s consort and presidential “twofer.” And it was Bill, never one to be hobbled by the limitations of the truth, who famously claimed that a statement’s veracity depended on “what the meaning of 'is’ is.”
Perhaps Hillary will eventually be saying the veracity of her Bosnian tall tale hinges on what the meaning of “snipe” is.
Now I recall that when I was a kid in summer camp, a snipe was a creature that counselors would send us off into the woods to capture in the dark. Like Clinton’s adventure with live fire, we campers eventually learned that the animal didn’t exist. ____________ DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006, and now available in paperback edition). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net
http://www.thiscantbehappening.net
Dave Lindorff, a columnist for Counterpunch, is author of several recent books ("This Can't Be Happening! Resisting the Disintegration of American Democracy" and "Killing Time: An Investigation into the Death Penalty Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal"). His latest book, coauthored with Barbara Olshanshky, is "The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office (St. Martin's Press, May 2006). His writing is available at http://www.thiscantbehappening.net
One particularly troubling aspect about the whole 'mis-statement' is that (as far as I know) Mrs. Clinton is NOT mixing memories or mistakenly speaking of another event that took place and confusing when and where the 'landing under sniper fire' occurred. No, it would seem that she has completely fabricated the entire incident, obviously with an eye to using the anecdote at an opportune time to capitalize on the implications of being experienced in Foreign Policy to the extent that her life was endangered on a trip to the war-torn Bosnia... In fact, it now seems that the only bit of truth to her 'mis-statement' was that she was on a plane and that it DID land in Bosnia! Hell, it sounded like a good story -but, she never once explained that she must have gotten that trip confused with another where she DID land under fire and have to run for cover! That would have been 'mis-speaking' or making a 'mis-statement' or whatever semantic wrangling they've done to the word LIE. Don't forget 'un-truth'...
Seems to me, 'mis-speaking' or making a 'mis-statement' is what you do when you call a LIE 'mis-speaking' or making a 'mis-statement'!!!
She's really shown herself for the desperate candidate that she is since this whole race started...
Next, she'll tell us how she was able to walk down the street in Bagdad...
by
C.Bid (0 articles, 6 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 540 comments)
on Wednesday, March 26, 2008 at 12:44:29 PM
Mr. Lindorff and C. Bid are marching in place. Point one: stop making hay from small news blurbs; it's a petty point, you must admit. (In your journalist heart, you know this, Mr. Lindorff.) Point two: there was sniper fire in hills around the Tuzla Airport and the airplane upon flying its traffic pattern, did make maneurvers to avoid said sniping. This info was gleaned from one of the people involved who is not an Obamabot.
"Counterpunch." Wow! Now there's an objective news outlet for you. That is, it is objective and balanced if you are a left-wing ideologue trolling for instant self-realization. Some moreleftists are believable; some are not.
Judge for youself; it's a free country. You can waste your time if that is your calling. Whatever floats your boat.
by
Marilyn Frith (6 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 191 comments)
on Wednesday, March 26, 2008 at 1:40:13 PM
If there was any risk, do you think Mama Clinton would have brought along her daughter? Some mother if so.
And would anyone have sent their 8-year-old kid out on the tarmac to hand Hillary flowers?
Besides, Sinbad says his recollection was that the scariest thing on the trip was finding a place to eat.
Hillary was lying and trying to give her self the aura of combat experience. Face it. What's really scary is that she may be one of those people who lies and exaggerates so often that she can't remember what's true and what's a fabrication.
If you don't think that's important, you have pretty low standards for your candidates. We have a pair of leaders like that right now, and I think it's time we raised the bar.
Incidentally, Counterpunch, which you've maligned, runs pieces by right wingers, liberals, commies, me, and I haven't seen them condemned for running things that were demonstrably untrue. If you know otherwise, then state your case. Otherwise, you're just blathering and condemning based on political bias.
by
Dave Lindorff (269 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 130 comments)
on Wednesday, March 26, 2008 at 2:16:09 PM
FYI I'm not an Obama supporter, per se, either... So don't lump me in with his more ardent campaigners. I did, however, vote for Clinton twice and even Gore in 2000...
It is important, though, to see the the kind of thing that a down on her luck candidate will do in order to get points when she thinks nobody will check out such a blatant and 'insignificant' LIE...
So, Marylin, which trip was she getting mixed up with THIS Bosnia trip? Which time and place was it that she had to duck and run or cover her head or don full body armor or bellycrawl or whatever??? None.
The point I'm making is that it wasn't 'mis-speaking' or even a 'mis-statement' when it was made up to make her look good and probably well-thought-out about when to spew it forth as a 'credential'. Screw the semantics... it was a LIE. There was no mistake. The same way her non-support and anti-NAFTA stance were found to be LIES -when the record shows she had meetings and tried to sell it!
Cheers,
Bid
by
C.Bid (0 articles, 6 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 540 comments)
on Wednesday, March 26, 2008 at 6:40:59 PM
I dub Hillary the new, 21st century Chicken Little. What a fantastic belief that the sky was falling. No one has done it so well since the first Chicken Little.
by
Christie (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 138 comments)
on Wednesday, March 26, 2008 at 8:23:36 PM
No evasive landing... There was a steep descent because the airstrip is surrounded by mountains.
No bullets or sniper fire...We never would have landed there if there were any such thing.
No "sitting on flackjackets.." The only place I've ever heard of that was in the movie Apocalypse Now.
Sorry, but as a Navy veteran, I immediately knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Clinton was trying to puff up her national-security credentials. Ya just don't misremember such a thing as being (or not being) in physical danger. To me, it's just like the claim that Saddam Hussein threw out the weapos inspectors in the late 90s. The right wing would have had an absolute fit if Bill Clinton had been disrespected in such a manner by a country the US was regularly bombing. I knew the moment I heard this tall tale that it was a lie.
And I agree with others who have commented on this, it really isn't necessary to have been a military veteran for someone to be a satisfactory C-in-C. It's a "nice-to-have" kinda thing.
by
Richmond Gardner (15 articles, 0 quicklinks, 5 diaries, 16 comments)
on Wednesday, March 26, 2008 at 11:34:03 PM
Was Obama lying when he said no one should associate with him after he citicized black female basketball players?
Was he lying when he demonizes special interests that he negotiated with in the Illinois legislature on health care and made key amendments favorable to insurers?
When can we know when he tells the truth?
by
edith fletcher (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 4 comments)
on Thursday, March 27, 2008 at 11:29:41 AM
Most of what you are calling "lies" are interpretations made by Clinton campaign people and right wing "news" programs. If you can document a real lie, the way the CBS clip documents Clinton's lie, or the way her White House records document her huge "I opposed NAFTA" lie, then list the links.
by
Dave Lindorff (269 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 130 comments)
on Thursday, March 27, 2008 at 12:00:01 PM
...that after the out and out bullshit being flung from the direction of the Clinton camp, there are still people willing to suspend disbelief in order to "see" truth within obvious lies. We in America have become used to the idea that anytime a politician's lips move, a lie is falling from them. That's a no-brainer, and I simply can't believe there are people arguing this point.
The question is degrees. Did Barack hear Rev Wright fire up the holy smoke? Sure, but so what? How is the opinion of his preacher going to affect him? Besides, if he's like most other Americans, he uses church as a nice place to take a holy nap.
A lie it was, sure, but how potent a lie? Not very. I think the thing that pisses most people off is by identifying himself with a christian church, the bullshit about him being a Muslim kind of falls by the wayside. How can he be both a Muslim and a christian? They are mutually exclusive things.
But misspeaking? That's a fancy word for lying! I don't care how you parse her words, the fact is that she wasn't in as much danger as she is portraying, if any.
She knows she can't win by honest means. All she has left is skulduggery, slight of hand, and other nasty political dirty tricks. So, as the media is so willing to point out, she is not above a lie, or fifteen hundred, to get herself a nice cushy seat in an Oval Office.
Personally, I wish she would just accept defeat gracefully, and let the healing in the Democratic party start. While it's completely clear that McBrain-dead is doing everything he can to shoot himself in the foot, and the head, and the gut, and anywhere else he can shoot, it would be foolish to think that this infighting among the Dems won't have an impact, turn voters off, and leave us with Daddy Warbucks Jr Jr. in the White House.
Is that what Hillary wants? If not, then it's time for her to do the right thing and stop being a whiny little bee-otch! If so, then she's heading us in the right direction.
Comforting thought? Nope.
Blessed be! Pappy
by
Pappy (61 articles, 0 quicklinks, 9 diaries, 828 comments)
on Thursday, March 27, 2008 at 2:15:13 PM
