The Tarmac at Tuzla
In a speech last week at George Washington University, Hillary Clinton recalled a 1996 trip to Bosnia and said she remembered "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." Subsequent accounts by members of her party took exception to her recollection, and the Washington Post's "Fact Checker" blog reports that "A review of nearly 100 news accounts of her visit shows that not a single newspaper or television station reported any security threat to the First Lady." The Post also reprinted a photo of a relaxed-looking Clinton greeting an eight-year-old girl who'd been trotted out to the tarmac to read a welcoming poem.
This isn't the biggest story on the campaign trail right now, nor should it be. But there's something creepily revealing about Clinton's apparent ginning-up of the sniper-fire anecdote, and about her reaction to being caught out. First things first: Claiming she was in more danger than was actually present is baffling on the face of it. It doesn't even make tactical sense, because it isn't the sort of exaggeration that pads her foreign-policy experience; it's the sort of tall tale guys tell girls in bars. Besides, it's unnecessary: Even without sniper fire, what she did was impressive, at least to me. I mean, I didn't get on a C17 and fly into Tuzla in 1996. The riskiest thing I did in 1996 was eat at Johnny Rockets.
Clinton's initial reaction to getting caught in the fib isn't going to help her much either. This YouTube piece starts with a CBS report from the day of the incident, showing a smiling Clinton strolling across the tarmac as if she were headed to lunch, and pausing to be greeted by the little girl. Then it cuts straight to Clinton being asked about the discrepancy and stonily sticking to her story: "There was no greeting ceremony and we were basically told to run to our cars. Now, that is what happened." There's something particularly Clintonian about the grim-faced refusal to amend a story, even when the preponderance of reportage refutes it, and there's video besides. All she had to say was "You know, I may not have recalled this one exactly right. I made a lot of trips as First Lady and some of them were pretty dangerous." A campaign spokesman finally acknowledged today that Clinton "misspoke." Gee, you think? But that doesn't obviate the questions: What does it say about the character of the candidate that she felt a need to puff up her tough-guy credentials, which are wholly separate from her foreign-policy credentials, and that she couldn't back off the story even when it was pretty decisively discredited? There's message discipline, and then there's this. This feels like desperation.
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Shes' claimed in todays Pittsburgh Tribune Review:
On saying last week that she landed under sniper fire during a trip to Bosnia in 1996, when she was first lady:
"I was sleep-deprived, and I misspoke."
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/breaking/s_558930.html
Yet, published today is yet another You Tube video of her tellling the jocular tall tale in Waco, Texas on February 29.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/3/25/105346/318/335/483775
Will she also use the same words as an explanation why she "misspoke" in Waco, Texas? No, I get it , she's suffering from chronic sleep deprivation . It must be those nightly 3 am calls.
Misspoke, the new word for lie. Hillary must have hired Frank Luntz. A misstatement is an noun and misspoke is the verb. Hillary Clinton misspoke a misstatement.
Why doesn't the media ask her where she was that she went through sniper fire and held her head down adn ran to the car? Another lie or misstatement?
The only thing I get from this story is that the press is bored right now.
The only thing I get from this story is that she's a liar, and like her idol George Bush she will never admit see lied even when presented with the evidence. Hillary is still the "Goldwater Girl" she was in her youth. Once a Republican always a Republican.
Yes, and don't forget her other hero, John McCain. The John McCain she endorsed over another Democrat, Barack Obama.
The thing I get from this story is that Hillary Clinton, like Bill Clinton, is a notorious liar. And if she lies about this, and lies about her involvement in the SCHIP Program, and lies about her role in the Ireland Peace talks, and lies about her involvement in opening the borders in Macedonia, it makes you wonder, WHAT THE HECK HAS SHE SAID THE TRUTH ABOUT!!!
Either that or they find such a breathtakingly vivid, utterly bald-faced lie completely astonishing. When you overlay the audio of her description with the actual video of the event, it's eerily like listening to Bush describe the War or the economy.
Who would actually forget whether or not they were ever under real sniper fire?
The crazy kicker was that even after they showed Hillary some of the video of her Bosnia visit to refresh her memory yesterday, she went on to fabricate another version that didn’t hold water. She’s chronic.
It's curious that Hillary thinks her fabricated tale of being shot at is what National Security experience is all about. At least I think that's what she was doing -- she doesn't do these things without a "reason". Was this a way of trying to say to John McCain, or maybe Obama, that she and McCain have "war experience" but Obama doesn't? McCain was a POw but she'd been under gunfire herself? This is the only reason I can think of that she'd tell this story, true or not.
I could believe Hillary misspoke if she could follow up by telling us where she was when she ran from sniper fire. I don't know many people who would forget that experience.
Hillary's actual quote when asked whether this calls into question her credibility: “No, I went to 80 countries, you know. I gave contemporaneous accounts, I wrote about a lot of this in my book. You know, I think that, a minor blip, you know, if I said something that, you know, I say a lot of things -- millions of words a day -- so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement." (http://www.attytood.com/2008/03/exclusive_clinton_acknowledges.html) I'm pretty sure that anyone who says "you know" four times in essentially two sentences should NOT be commander in chief.
Not everything I posted got into the above entry.so I will tray again by separate entries.But the record shows that Rodham was also intent on questioning the girl's credibility. That line of defense crystallized in a July 28, 1975, affidavit requesting the girl undergo a psychiatric examination at the university's clinic."I have been informed that the complainant is emotionally unstable with a tendency to seek out older men and to engage in fantasizing," wrote Rodham, without referring to the source of that allegation. "I have also been informed that she has in the past made false accusations about persons, claiming they had attacked her body."Dale Gibson, the investigator, doesn't recall seeing evidence that the girl had fabricated previous attacks. The assistant prosecutor who handled much of the case for Mahlon Gibson died several years ago."I remember a lot of bad things about what he did to me in that pickup of his," said the woman, who says she attempted suicide a year after the incident. "I've had a lot of counseling and saw a psychiatrist for five to ten years ... It really affected me mentally. I was always kind of scared to be alone with a guy afterwards."She doesn't blame Taylor for all her problems, but says the incident continues to haunt her, compounding her bouts of depression and anxiety.
Hillary has a very long history of"misspeaking" and "embellishing" I'd love the media to seriously take a look at the 12 year old rape victims case,that Hillary "misspoke" on in order to defend the rapist.Rodham, records show, questioned the sixth grader's honesty and claimed she had made false accusations in the past. She implied that the girl often fantasized and sought out "older men" like Taylor, according to a July 1975 affidavit signed "Hillary D. Rodham" in compact cursive.At 4:50 a.m., the girl walked into a local emergency room, badly shaken. The doctor's report noted that she had injuries consistent with rape. Sgt. Dale Gibson, the department's lead investigator in the case, interviewed her as she huddled with her mother. She offered a chilling detail - a threat from Taylor and his friends. "If I did say anything about it, they would catch me out later," she told the investigator.
I defended President Clinton during his presidency despite the lies and nonsense which brought about the Bush presidency ... after suffering under this regime for 8 years --- the Clinton's thought people would have historical amnesia longing for them to ascend to their rightful throne ... However, this is not a monarchy.
I have been very curious as to why mainstream media (MSM) always choose to use MIS-SPOKE or MIS-STATEMENT instead of LYING. Now based on your regular day-to-day experience, I would say that HRC flatly lied and therefore we should call her on it. But lets see...
When a man openly brags and boasts about all the women he's screwed, everybody knows he ain't made it with even one. When Hillary Clinton openly brags and boasts about her commando experience, everybody's learned she's as believable as the guy in the bar.
"As a matter of fact, there were snipers...uhhhh...inside the plane, too...yeah, yeah, that's the ticket."
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