Depressing, really, to those of us who think Hillary Clinton isn’t as demonic as so many of her critics think she is:
I cannot think of any way to defend her on this. I really can’t.
Christopher Hitchens is, as as is often the case with him, insightful and brutal.
I always try to give politicians the benefit of the doubt, and bristle when “lie” is thrown around as the casual explanation for any mis-statement. But I can’t for the life of me imagine what she was thinking here, or how she thinks “I mis-spoke” is a good enough response. I’ve waited to see if there was some *other* trip she wanted to bring up, and explain that she’d just misremembered when or where the dangerous events happened, or at least maybe remembered them as a tad more dramatic than they actually were, but alas, nothing has been forthcoming. How lame.
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I do not care for her and this just tells me I am right about my feelings.
Dean:
You know, I hate to say “I told you so” but in this case… Your immediate attempts to defend her incredible lies, and the length of time it took you to acknowledge them after even CBS and the NY Post had called her on them is not really reflecting well on your objectivity…
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Obama’s Surrender day
But at least you are honest and principled enough to post this, so I’ll give you credit where credit is deserved. It must not have been easy, so kudos to you.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Obama’s Surrender day
So, about something I care about:
If anyone is interested that first piece of music used in the video is from the SciFi miniseries, Children of Dune. The score for it was probably one of the best of any production, television or film, that year. The soundtrack was certainly one of the most popular.
And everyone knows the Indiana Jones theme so there’s no point talking about it.
So, yeah, Children of Dune. Good stuff.
Indefensible, Yes. But lemme try and give a brief for HRC.
Prior to 1970, our country, our government, our law enforcement community (mostly good guys,too) thought the following:
1. It was ok to beat suspects, particularly young male, black ones.
2. It was ok to burglarize homes and businesses to bug people (see Hoover, RFK, MLK.)
Of course, this wasn’t a blanket practice — this was a tactic (clearly illegal) used when the FBI and inner city cops (Chicago, NY, LA) thought it necessary under the circumstances.
Mind you, these people weren’t authoritarian monsters — they were playing by unsuspoken rules. They were the good guys, ask Eliot Ness.
When the rules changed in the 70’s — the NYPD got its ass busted (see Serpico) and so did Nixon, the FBI and the CIA.
Now, the police are kinda neutered, but they, generally, don’t beat up suspects and the FBI doesn’t bug people. Easy lawsuits by the ACLU, so those practices have stopped. Many people view this is as progress, and, on the whole, I tend to agree with them.
In the realm of politics, candidates have been shading and embellishing the truth for decades to bond with whatever audience they are addressing. Those were accepted rules. A candidate lying? I’m shocked, I tell ya, shocked!
But, with the blogosphere and YouTube, you can’t do it. Or you get hammered. The rules have changed. Public speaking is almost like sworn testimony these days. Don’t flub or mislead, or you get fisked or hammered. Ask Trent Lott. Ask Howard Dean.
Myself, I think this is not a good development. Too stringent.
But them are the new rules.
Back to Hillary. She needs to increase her “toughness” quotient. McCain was a fighter pilot, who survived the Hanoi Hilton. What does she got?
Well, Hillary surmounted sniper fire on the tarmac in Bosnia.
Oops. She forgot that the rules have recently changed. Can’t embelish, sorry. May a zillion YouTube hits of your making a televised ass of yourself blossom. So, now she is getting hammered. That’s life.
Again, we are straying far from issues that mean anything to 300 million Americans and future generations of this great country, but, sigh, that’s a metaphysical complaint I have about all these races.
HankB
Hank, there is no nice way to say this… You’re full of… well since there is no nice way, I won’t say it.
It has never been OK and an “unwritten rule” in politics that you can make up surviving life-and-death situations that you never experienced. This claim by Hillary would have gotten any candidate of any year since this nation began laughed off the campaign trail if they had been caught.
The only part of your post that is true is that it is easier to get caught. But lying of this magnitude has always been political suicide and reason for ridicule.
I don’t know if you are trying to excuse Hillary or are just making up history, but either way, you are way, way off.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Obama’s Surrender day
Uhm, actually, I posted already a few days ago that it was hard to defend her. This is my second posting saying so.
Cosmic Conservative,
You seem a tad naive and/or partisan — are you president of some college Republican group?:)
“Lying of this magnitude has always been political suicide”?????
Are you joking?
In 1940, FDR said he had no plans to send our boys off to a foreign war.
JFK lied about the deal made to withdraw missles in Turkey as part of the Cuban Missle Crisis.
Ike lied about U-2 spy planes.
LBJ lied about his non-service in WWII (he was a Congressman at the time)
By comparison, Hillary’s is penny-ante stuff. I say that as a McCain supporter.
Good luck on your SAT’s though:)
HankB
Oh how I c-r-i-n-g-e when I watch this. The guilty knowledge of her bending the truth is all over her when she starts the spin on camera; I think it’s unmistakable in her features and manner.
On one hand I actually feel empathy, and on the other, the reptilian entitlement behind the lie chills me to the bone. These people are so craven; insipid; hollow. Yikes!!
Others far wiser than me can go on about the psychopathology buried in this little episode. What struck me was how Obama-like it was. There are only three things really different about Obama and Hillary — height, girth and genitalia. They’re just a pair of Kool Aid kids from the social laboratory of Saul Alinsky.
What bugs me most: Somebody’s running for POTUS and they don’t have any meaningful experience, so they lie, and it’s ok, because if Republicans can say it then we need to claim it too.
And then comes what may well be a Kos-poster masquerading as a “cosmic conservative.” Dude. Barnes and Dean deserve better.
Hank: You must be kidding.
FDR making a campaign promise he desperately HOPED he could keep to not go to war is not “lying” in anything like the same sense as “we dodged sniper bullets as we rushed to the car.” Are you seriously trying to compare the two? Are you completely unaware of the difference between a political statement and a freaking PERSONAL MEMORY OF LIFE AND DEATH DANGER? Sheesh.
Yes there has been a willingness in this country to accept partisan political opportunism in its candidates, but to claim to have been shot at by foreign forces while dodging serpentine from the plane to waiting cars?
You are comparing apples to orangutans.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Obama’s Surrender day
willem:
What “Republicans” have “said it” and what have they said?
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Obama’s Surrender day
Cosmic Con!
Nah, you’re clueless on this one. I can document 20-25 substantive lies/embellishments/exaggerations by some of our best candidates and best presidents.
No, this doesn’t excuse Hillary’s whopper. But excessive zeal to seize on a whopper(as minimal as this one) ain’t impressive either.
Call me after the SAT’s — I’ll buy you a beer if they card you:)
Best,
Hankie
Hank:
Note, as with Dean, that I don’t feel a need to insult you to debate with you. Again, I think that shows the relative strengths of our positions.
I say again that if you do not see the difference between someone making a pure political promise in order to get elected, and someone claiming to remember getting shot at by snipers in an airport, you’ve got a lot of gall insulting my intelligence.
Just in case you haven’t noticed, the very uproar at Hillary’s whopper is powerful evidence that supports my contention that Hillary’s lie was qualitatively different than the lies you are talking about. Obama, Hillary and probably even McCain are making the traditional lies you are describing every single day on this campaign, and they are getting the same treatment they always have. Hillary’s lie was different Hank, and that’s why it is getting different treatment.
Perhaps when your debate skills mature you will learn to debate with reason and facts instead of insults and attacks.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..What I think of UFOs
Hank –
I don’t believe the scrutiny is a bad development in the least. Either we’ll wind up with solid candidates or we’ll wind up with flawed, but acceptable candidates who’ve been vetted by the American public. No one will be able to pull off a true cult of personality – of which, I think, Obama is the last gasp. The only way around it is to make political commentary outside the media elite illegal in some way, but I think the net will always route around such interference.
As for ‘issues that matter to 300 million Americans’, I’ll just note that both Hillary’s and Obama’s camps aren’t very concerned when confronted by their candidate’s lies but ARE outraged when their relative lack of experience is brought up. I think we all still care about that.
Look, I’m not a big fan of Hillary either. But this is minor stuff, y’all are carping on.
Within the next 7 months, I suspect McCain’s gonna get caught in “whopper” of similar magnitude, let’s see how indignant y’all get.
Last Word!
HankB
Hank’s got a point. Bigger lies have been told for less gain. But there are two things that bother me a lot about this particular lie.
First, it was clearly done to make Hillary look resolute, tough, and literally battle-hardened. There’s no reason to lie about that unless it isn’t true. Which it isn’t. She’s intimidated by McCain’s undeniable advantage here and has no way of countering it save a lame fabrication.
And that’s the second thing. It was sooo lame and so easily debunked. I may have a grudging respect someone who can pull off a bald-face lie. I can even accept that politicians (especially Presidents) sometimes must lie to us as part of their jobs. As Sun Tzu said, “All warfare is based on deception”, and a Commander In Chief needs to be good at deception (or leave it to someone else who is.) Hillary has just shown that she’s not very good at it. Much worse than her husband, for example.
bcostin’s last blog post..Elephant Paints Self Portrait
Lawyer never have problems with lies or lying except the ones under oath.
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