In general I’ve little interest in the Hillary Clinton-bashing pervasive in the men’s and fathers’ movement. One example of Hillary’s alleged misdeeds which is often cited by men’s activists is the “No woman is illegal” incident. It occurred while Clinton was campaigning in Nevada in January and is based on the following from the Las Vegas Review-Journal:
“Clinton and her busload of traveling press moved from there to the popular local Mexican restaurant Lindo Michoacan, where a ’roundtable’ that was actually square passed a microphone around to tell her people’s concerns about the mortgage crisis and foreclosures. She took notes and munched on tortilla chips.
“In broken English, one woman told Clinton how she wasn’t making money as a broker anymore.
“‘I have no income at all,’ she said. ‘So how will I survive?’
“Choking up with emotion, the woman said, ‘In my neighborhood, there are brand-new homes, but the value is nothing. I’m glad you are here so I can tell you, because you’re going to be the president, I know.’
“A man shouted through an opening in the wall that his wife was illegal.
“‘No woman is illegal,’ Clinton said, to cheers.”
This is hardly an anti-male statement–she said “No woman is illegal” because she was responding to a man who said “my wife is illegal.” OK, she could have said there are no illegal “people,” but I don’t see any gender component here.
I do give Hillary Clinton credit where she deserves it–for one example, see my co-authored column Hillary Clinton Proposes Reforming Child Support System to Help Dads (Black Press USA Network, 1/25/08).
That being said, I believe that the recent Hillary Clinton/”sniper fire” incident is a legitimate strike against her. In the first couple paragraphs of a recent speech, Hillary Clinton said:
“I certainly do remember that trip to Bosnia, and as Togo said, 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 a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.
In reality, the picture above depicts the “danger” Hillary faced. According to feminist blogger Barry Deutsch:
“There was no sniper fire. There was a greeting ceremony at the airport, with the President of Bosnia. An adorable eight-year old read Clinton a poem on the tarmac, while Chelsea waited nearby. There were no press reports of Clinton being under fire in Bosnia.
“This isn’t an unimportant lie; Clinton’s lie here, and her exaggeration of her role in Ireland, relates directly to her contention that she’s qualified to answer a phone ringing at 3 am and Obama isn’t. This is, in fact, the central argument of her campaign…
“What really bothers me is that Clinton’s lying is so transparent, indicating that Clinton — who by all accounts is brilliant and disciplined — has decided she can get away with blatant lies.”
All of that is true, but I suppose what annoys me more about it is “if a place was…too dangerous, the president couldn’t go, so send the First Lady…” Feminists deny the widespread chivalry of our society. These rules are very clear–if someone has to do something dangerous, such as a dangerous job, an emergency/natural disaster, front-line fighting, etc.–it’s going to be a man who does it.
Hillary’s ludicrous implication that if a place is dangerous we won’t send Bill there but instead pack off poor Hillary to face the peril is an exact inversion of what happens in our society.
The video of Hillary’s Bosnia trip can be seen here.
[Note: If you or someone you love is faced with a divorce or needs help with child custody, child support, false accusations, Parental Alienation, or other family law or criminal law matters, ask Glenn for help by clicking here.]
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Hmmmm. Any possibility, once again, that the Hillster could be simply *wrong* here and not lying? That maybe, 10+ years after the fact, she’s remembering a *different* incident wherein her convoy took some fire?
Also, while I entirely agree that our society instinctively and overwhelmingly still expects men to take on the most dangerous jobs, it’s not clear to me that the general mentality here is impossible. The press does not and never has followed First Ladies as closely or as volubly as it does Presidents. I’m not sure if there’s ever even once been an assassination attempt on a First Lady. While they have quite a retinue by ordinary people’s standards, it’s not going to be comparable to the massive undertaking that moving a President around is going to entail.
Simply put, I find it entirely believable that from the Secret Service’s perspective–repeat, the *Secret Service’s perspective–protecting the First Lady is considered, all in all, an easier proposition because there’s just not as much in terms of attempts on her life, or terrorist or press chatter following her comings and goings.
(And yes, I’m sure someone here is going to claim I’m “in the tank” for Hillary. Whatever. I think my reasoning stands on its own merits.)
Dean, I see three possibilities:
1. Senator Clinton blatantly lied.
2. Senator Clinton confused the Bosnia trip with another, as yet unidentified trip where she DID run for cover under sniper fire.
3. Senator Clinton is delusional.
“Mistaken” isn’t believable. One does not “mistake” being fired upon; one certainly does not “mistake” it for a polite ceremony on the tarmac.
I could believe that one could confuse one trip with another. I await word of the trip where the First Lady WAS fired upon, but it never happened in Bosnia.
If 1 is true, Senator Clinton is dishonest, but only to the level of resume padding: unfortunate, but common. What’s worse is that she’s STUPID for telling such an easily verfied lie. Stupid doesn’t recommend her for the Presidency.
If 3 is true, Senator Clinton needs medical or psychiatric treatment, and should not be trusted with any sort of power.
So I await evidence that 2 is the case.
Dean, you are in the tank for Hillary.
It defies reason, logic and common sense that someone “thought” they were under sniper fire and rushed from an airplane to waiting cars in body armor instead of attending a photo-op welcoming event.
Nobody can possibly believe that Hillary believes that happened and is rational enough to be a Senator, much less a President.
It was a bald-faced lie with the specific purpose of giving her some “under fire heroism” credibility to counter the actual and documented “under fire heroism” of John McCain.
The only difference between 2008 and 1992 is that the press is not in the bag for the Clintons and so their lies are being caught. That’s it.
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Dean, that is a thoughtful comment, and speaking as an Obama supporter, you just convinced me to give Hillary a total pass on this issue.
Aziz Poonawalla’s last blog post..electronic intifada
If Hillary has simply confused this trip with another on which she survived a corkscrew landing and sniper fire, I would have expected her (camp) to check the facts and clarify the story soon after Sinbad came out publicly and said it didn’t happen. Instead, she repeated the story as recently as last Monday.
If she was merely confused as to when this happened, I would have expected her response to be something other than a lame “I misspoke.”
This sure sounds like a flat out lie and, given the source, I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt when she produces evidence of some type of mistake of time or place (which should be easy enough to do).
After all, this is the woman who said she was “instrumental” and “deeply involved” in the Irish peace process, while those who were there tell a very different story. This is the woman who claimed Chelsea was in danger as she jogged near the World Trade Center during the 9/11 attacks. It later was revealed that Chelsea was asleep in her apartment, no where near the WTC, and watched the event on TV after her roommate woke her up.
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Martin,
4. She might have been drunk, and just imagined she was under sniper fire when she landed.
I need to drink heavily when I’m required to fly, so I could understand that explanation. I’ve imagined worse.
Not saying that’s a good thing. But it’s a thing.
And with that husband of hers, who could blame her?
This seems pretty irrelevant, though exact quotes might make me rethink. Given that communications into New York pretty much collapsed that day, it’s entirely plausible that Senator Clinton could’ve feared for her daughter’s life — maybe even imagined risky scenarios — while not knowing her daughter was safe from harm. I’d hazard a guess that millions of people that day feared all sorts of scenarios that never happened. My own mother, knowing I was in transit that week, couldn’t rest until she called my wife and learned I was in Ohio.
There are plenty of reasons to criticize Senator Clinton. There’s n0 need to scrape the bottom of the barrel.
jaymaster,
Not being a drinker, I never considered 4.
Honestly, I think it may be the most acceptable answer (as long as it’s not habitual). A memory blurred by drink is more believable than a completely fabricated memory.
This seems pretty irrelevant, though exact quotes might make me rethink.
Seems to me that, if we’re talking about whether Hillary’s “I misspoke” explanation warrants a willful suspension of disbelief, then previous instances of fabrication are relevant. Off the top of my head — I didn’t see any reason to go digging — I sited two: her false claim that she was integral in the Irish peace process, and her claim that Chelsea was jogging near the WTC when the planes hit. The first, like the Bosnia story, was an attempt to exaggerate her foreign policy experience. I believe that’s relevant. The second shows that she’s even willing to lie about non-resume stuff, presumably to seek sympathy or other advantage. That strikes me as relevant too. I guess your mileage varies, as they say.
Here’s a link which quotes the Chelsea story.
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/elder111501.asp
Note that Hillary’s remarks were made on 9/17, nearly a week after 9/11. I’d guess Hillary and Chelsea had had a chance to trade stories by then.
If this is irrelevant or “scraping the bottom of the barrel,” I apologize for wasting your time.
Freeven’s last blog post..“Universal” health care continues to disappoint
Martin: Hillary’s use of Chelsea’s dangerous jog during the 9/11 attack was not something that Hillary said in the heat of the moment. It was an anecdote she shared multiple times well after the fact. She only stopped using it when she was called on it and proven to be “misspeaking.”
Hillary and Bill have a long and well documented history of making up a version of events that makes them look good, and then publicly spreading that version of events around repeatedly.
Frankly I think that after a while they even believe some of them.
They are not unique in this regard. The prevarications of Al Gore and John Kerry are equally well documented.
But I do admit there’s something special about how easily the Clintons do it.
Hillary stuck to her made-up sniper attack story even after Sinbad publicly denied it. When confronted with Sinbad saying it never happened, Hillary, TWICE, attempted to slander Sinbad by saying “he’s a comedian” as if to say “of course you believe ME instead of a mere entertainer, right?”
It’s not an isolated incident. And as I said, the lie had a specific political purpose. I suppose people can believe what they like about Hillary, but as for me I am quite certain that she is an habitual prevaricator, exaggerator and, when necessary, outright liar.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Obama’s negatives take huge jump
It’s easy to be an unusually good liar if you have the press cleaning up after you. When they stop doing it without warning…result!
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