Hillary's Psychic Reality
During the Democratic debate in Philadelphia, Hillary Clinton gave the following gloss on her Bosnia fairytale: "I can tell you that I may be a lot of things but I'm not dumb... On a couple of occasions in the last weeks, I just said some things that weren't in keeping with what I knew to be the case ...on a few occasions I was not as accurate as I have been in the past... So I will either try to get more sleep...or have somebody who is there as a reminder to me. "
Huh?
Ordinarily, saying things that aren't in keeping with what one knows to be the case is called "lying". And what's dumb got to do with it? No one ever accused Hillary of being dumb. And dumb couldn't explain her Bosnia remarks anyhow.
Yet bizarrely enough, the press didn't seem to notice or comment on the utter absurdity of her remarks. Either they were accepted as some kind of apology or they were relegated to the ever-expanding swamp of campaign "gaffes" and "silliness."
In any case, the Bosnia story has now been overshadowed -- most recently by the lunatic performances of Reverend Wright. But whether or not Reverend Wright is a nut-job is not remotely the same order of question as whether snipers were shooting at Hillary Clinton. Everyone senses this, even if they can't articulate it.
It is truly unsettling to watch someone lie so effortlessly and with such seeming sincerity. To recap: Hillary, sporting a big festive shamrock scarf, looked straight at the audience and in a remarkably relaxed way recalled an incident where she had landed in Bosnia under sniper fire. She described a situation so dangerous that the greeting ceremony at the airport had to be canceled and claimed that she'd run to her vehicle with her head down in order to make a quick getaway. She even had an accompanying hand gesture conveying her dramatic dash for dear life.
There were no obvious tells that Hillary was bluffing. She chuckled a little as she described her narrow escape -- a curious affect given the gravity of the situation, but people do react in different ways to trauma. Overall, it was a pretty smooth performance. If there were any pangs of conscience they were not visible.
As political lies go, it was an outlier. Hillary didn't impulsively lie because she was caught off-guard. She didn't lie because the truth would be damaging to her political career or painful to her family. She didn't lie to win over a political base. She didn't lie to distance herself from an event that suggested some improper conduct or an unsavory person that could tarnish her reputation. She didn't lie because she was promoting behavior in the public sphere that she was not abiding by in her personal life. She didn't lie to cover up a mistake that had been made.
Hillary's lie was different. She lied with no need to do so. And she made the story up out of whole cloth. It wasn't as if one bullet was fired at her and she exaggerated the incident. There was no sniper fire - never, ever. It was the sort of lie a child might tell playing make-believe. In an article in Huffington Post, Nora Ephron confessed that she'd "lost hours trying to figure out why" Hillary told such "a big lie".
But let's say she was motivated by political gain. Some have suggested the story was meant to embellish her foreign policy experience. But dodging sniper fire doesn't really speak to foreign policy expertise; it speaks more to issues of character like bravery and patriotism. Maybe it was supposed to suggest that Hillary could be a better match for John McCain because she too had put herself in harms' way for her country.
Of course, as a political calculation, this would have been crazy. Considering the probability of getting caught, the risks of telling this lie far outweighed any conceivable political gain. As New York Times columnist Frank Rich pointed out her story had "been publicly debunked by journalists and eyewitnesses" for months. "Why would so smart a candidate play political Russian roulette with virtually all the bullet chambers loaded?"
Wouldn't it have entered her mind that if she was found out it would be seen as an insult to anyone who'd seen real action? One GOP ad with grainy footage of McCain limping home from Vietnam contrasted with Hillary's cheerful tale of coming under sniper fire in Bosnia, and the race would be over.
Hillary may have gambled that her audience wanted to believe her. Or she may have figured the story was so tall that the public would never dream she'd made it up. Whatever her thought process, Hillary appeared unfazed by the possibility of detection. Guilt, fear of humiliation, or any other negative repercussions did not appear to inhibit her. Apparently, there was no little voice in her head, helping her to distinguish between right and wrong. Christopher Hitchens concluded that Hillary may be "someone who lies without conscience or reflection".
When Hillary's lie was exposed, she attempted to diminish it. She said she "misspoke" because of sleep deprivation. Then she said she "misspoke" because, after all, she spouts "millions of words a day". But Hillary couldn't have "misspoke" She'd repeated the story on several occasions. Perhaps she was saying that she continually "misspoke". But if she continually "misspoke", surely Chelsea, who had accompanied her to Bosnia, would have pointed this out. (Psst, Mom, nobody was shooting at us).
Maybe there was nothing Hillary could say, but a little remorse would have been nice. Instead she seemed irritated: "So I made a mistake. That happens. It proves I'm human which you know for some people is a revelation". In other words, we were to blame for holding her to too high a standard of truth.
When it became apparent that people weren't willing to dismiss Hillary's Bosnia "misstatement" so quickly, she attempted to make light of it. Appearing on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, she joked: "I was so worried I wasn't going to make it [here]. I was pinned down by sniper fire at a Burbank airport." She referred to the Bosnia flap as "a mismatch of words and actions", and since, after all, she'd got it right in her book, she'd "obviously had a lapse".
The Hillary camp must have realized the story wasn't completely dead, because Bill Clinton brought it up again. In a bizarrely misguided attempt to minimize its impact he revived the story in a version of his own : "There was a lot of fulminating because Hillary one time late at night when she was exhausted misstated and immediately apologized for it, what happened to her in Bosnia in 1995... You woulda thought, you know that she'd robbed a bank the way they carried on about this. And some of them when they're 60, they'll forget something when they're tired at 11:00 at night too".
Of course, it wasn't one time. It wasn't late at night. She wasn't exhausted because she said it three different times. And she didn't apologize immediately (or even close to immediately). It also begged the question: If Hillary could be gaga at 11:00 pm, what would she be like when the phone rings at 3:00 am?
When President Clinton's story backfired, Hillary's campaign tried to paint Bill as the storyteller and his wife as the authority. At a rally in Indiana, Bill said: "Hillary called me and said, 'You don't remember this. You weren't there, let me handle it'''. Now let me get this straight: Hillary was there, so Hillary ought to know, except it turned out that Hillary didn't know, so Bill makes up a story to explain the story that Hillary made up even though she was there.
There are two possibilities: Hillary may be a pathological liar. Or, more persuasive to me, Hillary believed what she was saying and her description of her Bosnia trip was a true representation of her psychic reality and not external reality. In her internal world, Hillary may feel as though she's always being shot at by sniper fire and that she's heroically managed to stay alive.
This theory makes sense of Hillary's recklessness. It didn't feel reckless to Hillary to repeat this lie over and over again, and she paid no heed to those who contradicted her, because in her mind, she was telling the truth. Only when confronted with undeniable evidence of external reality -- actual footage from her Bosnia trip - did she admit (possibly to herself as well as the public) that her version of events was not true.
It also explains Hillary's reaction when exposed. She was angry because she was forced to abandon her psychic reality for external reality. For her, this was tantamount to giving up the truth in exchange for mere facts. When she said "It proves I'm human which you know for some people is a revelation", she may well have been reminding herself.
While most of her explanations have made no sense, when Hillary told Leno that she'd had "a lapse", she was right on. She'd had an actual lapse in mental functioning. Fantasy took over from reality. Reporters and pundits were already starting to question whether Hillary believed her own story. Hitchens wondered whether "she was subject to an illusory past". Melinda Henneberger, writing in Slate, said, she could only conclude that Hillary must have believed the lie because she could not imagine any other reason why "any presidential candidate would knowingly cook up such a doozy of a drama about dodging a sniper's bullets in Bosnia -- given that she was accompanied on this trip by a planeload of reporters". Henneberger concluded that this was more disturbing than if she had lied and "ought to be a deal breaker".
This may explain why Hillary's explanation in the Pennsylvania debate was so bizarre: "I can tell you that I may be a lot of things but I'm not dumb." She wanted to shift her problem into the domain of IQ rather than raising a question about her psychic functioning. If people began to question her grasp of reality, she'd be history.
The sensed of a shared reality is fundamental to the functioning of the world. In the same way that delusions and hallucinations are so disturbing, or that contradicting a child's perceptions is so traumatic, so Hillary's story constituted a jarring attack on our sense of common reality.
In the course of Hillary's campaign, a number of features have repeatedly emerged that are also elements of her Bosnia tale. 1) Hillary is both hero and victim; 2) facts are of no consequence; 3) And there are no witnesses or observers to the facts. This last point is always startling. For example, Hillary's explanation of her vote on the war made Nora Ephron wonder if Hillary thought we "weren't alive at the time."
On the tarmac in Bosnia, Hillary is the victim for being shot at and the hero for braving a war zone. And she's apparently having a negative hallucination that nobody else was there. The irony, of course, is that when the Bosnia story was discovered, it reinforced Hillary's psychic reality: Once again she felt she was being sniped at (this time by journalists). And that she had to heroically fight on and escape this near-death experience. Which it now seems she has.
For those who think Hillary won't go all the way to the convention in Denver, think again. Hillary sees herself as the victim in this primary campaign -- blaming the press, or the Democratic rules of proportional representation, or the caucus system, or whatever else she comes up with between now and August. She considers herself a heroic fighter for the good of the country; she ignores all the merely factual evidence that she is losing by every measure; and she imagines that nobody is there to notice.
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It makes me wonder about Chelsea. She was on the Bosnia trip, why didn't she tell her mom that there was no sniper fire and that there was a greeting ceremony? Why is her complicity to remain silent on this not being questioned?
Is lying congenital? Or do they all live in their own universe of their own making? Hillary has always invented her own environment, she wasn't just "standing by her man" because he was never unfaithful or reckless. Bill figured he could get away with anything cause he was Bill and he can tell the voters any old story and they will believe it because he is Bill. They can both tell themselves that the 90's were just peachy and everyone wants to return to them, really. She is willing to sacrifice herself and go without sleep and misspeak for the sake of others. And when reality intrudes she has to tell us all "I'm not dumb" you are!
And obviously she was not thinking clearly when she supposed that the public would buy the story of the military putting a First Lady in danger. And at a time when we have soldiers ducking actual sniper fire.
I've wondered about that myself, apoyo.
What seems to be missing is that even with the gains the democrats have made Hillary's base of support makes up, what, 23-26% of the total electorate?
Even dubya has a better approval rating!
And this is why the primary has gone on so long. There is NOTHING that Hillary will recognize as defeat. She continues because she believes she can win. The numbers don't mean anything. She really thinks she has a chance at the nomination.
There are some political cartoons showing Barack Obama with his hand on the bible, taking the oath of office, and there is Hillary on the sidelines, shouting the oath of office herself. Given Hillary's mental disposition, I think this isn't as funny as the cartoonists intended. It is way too close to reality.
Everytime I see Bill speak I become more and more convinced that he lies for the sheer sport of it. I'm increasingly believing the same about Hillary. Whatever the cause, their willingness to lie -- to alot of people about really big things -- is shocking.
He LOVES having attention.
When Hillary's sleepy, she lies. How many of us don't? No biggie. We just have to keep that in mind and make sure she always gets enough sleep from now on.
haha.... well, she can sleep in as long as she likes come June 3.
I totally agree with this post.
Hillary does not care about America or Americans--except that she wants them to vote for her.
She wants to be President to feed her own ego. She scares me and I don't think as POTUS anything will get done. She will spend a lot of time taking revenge on those in power that did not support her. Bush's lies got us into a war and he lacks intelligence, imagine a dishonest Clinton who has already threatened to obliterate another country.
Clever approach - very creative -- I would opt for it at tea. But this is OUR lives. she is being allowed to be crazy with OUR lives. The Clintons took our country and its values and flushed us all down the toliet. They burned many bridges for our nation, for us and they even, literally burned way too many citizens who tried to blow the whistle on them. Neither of them will stop at anything, that includes murder to hide their evil transactions. If there is any good fortune in their current stance -- it is that they are both senior citizens, and vulnerable to the bigger picture of life. Until they are gone, thousands of Clinton supporters are not going to feel safe enough to come out from under their own guilts by association with this couple.
For them to continue to the convention - as the loser is expected because that is what they do, terrorize, and ruin everything for everyone, no matter the cost. They never cared about America. We are so fortunate as a grassroots coalition to be able to march together for a common cause--to oust corruption, which these two people certainly stand for as do many of their 'cousins' in the GOP.
The BillHillary's and the DLC are the Democratic Party branch of the Republican Party. They've all but destroyed the Democratic Party, the Party of FDR, JFK, JEFFERSON, TRUMAN is lost because of Bill Clinton with Hillary's help.
I'm so sad. She was my gal when this campaign first started, think of it, maybe the first woman President. I was so proud of her. Now I'm so disappointed at what I see behind her crumbling facade I can barely stand to look at her. In all fairness, I can't imagine there are many whose facade could stand up to such microscopic scrutiny as the candidates have endured, but the contrast between her and Obama is so striking and not at all favorable to her. I choose his qualities of character, over any greater experience she has to offer, over our shared gender, over my great admiration for her husband.
I was seriously considering her too. It shocked the heck out of me to find out that "universal health care" boils down to this: The Middle Class has to purchase full coverage insurance without the benefit of subsidies if they are not covered by their employer. Who does this affect? It affects the under-insured and uninsured self-employed and independent contractor voters who are middle class earners. That's it. That's the offer, or rather the requirement.
Ellen,
Way to go, girl. You blew the flaws in Hills psyche out of the water! If you think real hard and tap your feet together, this might actually turn out to be a major issue in the general election. Obama needs you on his team now to save his butt. You're wasting your time at the Huff Post. Look out Frank Rich!
I totally agree with the blog, great job, Ellen. Just remember Hillary has the 3:00AM advertisement about answering the "red phone" at 3:00AM in the WH. So according to her logic, if she is sleep deprived, she may order the "obliteration" of whatever country she thinks about while yawning. Hillary is just a cut above John McCain (republican lite) and that still makes her pathetic.
Three very bizarre things happened in the Penn debate.
The first was Hillary's answer to that question. Having exhausted all the plausable explanations (being tired, misunderstanding the warnings of sniper fire by security people, etc.) she chose to blithely admit to lying without using that word. She admitted to saying something while she knew it knew it not to be true.
The second was Barack Obama's response. After being barraged with negative questions about his own campaign, and after having Hillary pile on with the questioners, the door was open for Obama to point out that Hillary lying is a bigger deal than Obama having an angry pastor. Instead, he chose, perhaps too magnanimously, to treat Hillary in the way he would prefer to be treated, but letting the event speak for itself, but giving her the benefit of the doubt and by not attempting to make political hay out of it.
Perhaps he hoped that Hillary, George and Charles would take his cue and bring the conversation to a more civil level. Perhaps he thought the audience would draw their own conclusions and also take note of what a decent, thoughtful guy he was.
The third bizarre thing: none of the above happened. Nobody seemed to notice his magnanimous gesture. George went on to question Obama about Rev. Wright's patriotism, and Hillary continued to pile on.
How Americans vote this election will reflect what we truly value. For better or worse, we'll get the President we deserve.
What bothers me about the Bosnia story is that Hillary apparently knowingly took her (underage?)daughter along on a junket to a combat zone. Good judgment or bad? You decide.
It indicates she would have no qualms about sending young soldiers and marines to war.
Ellen
Re this: "It didn't feel reckless to Hillary to repeat this lie over and over again, and she paid no heed to those who contradicted her, because in her mind, she was telling the truth. Only when confronted with undeniable evidence of external reality -- actual footage from her Bosnia trip - did she admit (possibly to herself as well as the public) that her version of events was not true."
This is EXACTLY what narcissists do -- they create a world with themselves in the central place that is not related to reality and insist that others support their version of the truth. When caught, they brush it off as inconsequential. That creation of an "internal reality" is what keeps her in the race when she's already beaten, all the time insisting that she will win and only SHE can be the president for America.
I think she has real problems.
Ellen's a PhD. I bet she knows this already...
Ah, so she is! Thanks for the heads-up. I hadn't clicked on her name to check her out.
I have to admit that I've also wondered what's wrong with John McCain, with his wandering ever-changing policy statements, his temper, his foul mouth, and his seeming inability to see that he does just what he criticizes others for doing. I've about concluded he's a bit of a bully who's a bit senile, even though others swear he's quite conscious about what he does.
But to get back to Hillary... I suspect she just can't help herself, that most of her actions are not under her conscious control. That self-aggrandizement, "I've got 35 years of experience that qualify me for the presidency," is really pitiful, and embarrassingly false to just about everybody. We don't need another psychologically unhealthy president.
Is a blatant lie NOT a lie if you BELIEVE it is true?
Is it better to be led by a demonstrated liar or someone who is honestly delusional?
No thanks, I'll look elsewhere to hire someone for this most important position.
Hillary and Bill, either one, would rather climb a tree and tell a lie than stand flat footed and tell the truth, but the so would Bush and Cheney.
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