Metanarratives and Hillary's Honesty Gap

Do you want to know how McCain beats Hillary in November? In short, the same way George Bush beat Al Gore (minus the Supreme Court coup). As Rolling Stone explained in 2001 :

Last year, a review conducted by two nonpartisan groups, Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Pew Research Center, found that a stunning seventy-six percent of the Gore campaign coverage in early 2000 centered around two negative themes: that he lies and exaggerates, and that he's tarred by scandal. "We call it the metanarrative," says Tom Rosenstiel, director of Project for Excellence in Journalism. "Journalists are looking for a story line, a narrative device, that plays out over weeks and months, and there's nothing wrong with that. The problem is if they let the narrative overwhelm the facts, then it becomes a distorting lens. It can lead journalists to ignore and mischaracterize facts as they try to fit them into the story."

For those whose memories of Bush are cloudy pre-9/11 or forget how much the press despised Al Gore prior to his public resurrection as a party elder and environmental evangelist, Google the words "invented the internet" to get an idea of how the zombie lies of media narratives refuse to die. All it takes is a few quotes out of context and a few dashes of hyperbole to turn someone into a "serial fibber" with a "Pinocchio problem".

It's pretty clear that this is the same sort of tactic that would be used to defeat Hillary Clinton in the fall if she were to become the Democratic nominee. Over the past week, she's been contradicted on a number of claims that she uses to bolster her "experience" over her rival. The first being her Ohio primary-motivated insistence that she opposed NAFTA, which Jake Tapper has been debunking at length :

I have now talked to three former Clinton Administration officials whom I trust who tell me that then-First Lady Hillary Clinton opposed the idea of introducing NAFTA before health care, but expressed no reservations in public or private about the substance of NAFTA.

Yet the Clinton campaign continues to propagate this myth that she fought NAFTA tooth and nail because she opposed the substance of the bill.The campaign claims over and over that she did not support NAFTA. That may be emotionally and intellectually true -- but actions speak louder than misgivings.

For the Clinton campaign, we're not supposed to pay attention to what she did (which, according to her recently released schedules, included a handful of pro-NAFTA meetings) but what she said about NAFTA (but only privately, at least, until it was politically convenient).

The even bigger, and more embarrassing, fib is Clinton's fictional account of her dangerous flight into Tuzla, Boznia which is becoming her campaign-killing YouTube moment. (via nitpicker)

Clinton's foreign policy credentials have also been questioned recently in regards to her role (or lack therof) in the Northern Ireland peace process :

Mrs Clinton's version of events has been challenged by Peter King, an Ulster Unionist Party negotiator at the Good Friday talks in 1998, who said: "Hillary Clinton was totally invisible at the actual negotiations.

"As far as I am concerned, Mrs Clinton was as relevant to peace in Northern Ireland as Tony Blair's wife or the ex-wife of Bertie Ahern [the Irish prime minister]."

Lord Trimble of Lisnagarvey, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with John Hume of the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party in 1998, told The Daily Telegraph last week that Mrs Clinton's claims were a "wee bit silly".

This month, Terry McAuliffe, Mrs Clinton's campaign chairman, told CNN: "We would not have peace today had it not for Hillary's hard work in Northern Ireland."

Both Unionist and Nationalist negotiators told this newspaper that while Mrs Clinton's work with women's groups was positive her overall role was peripheral and she played no part in the gruelling negotiations that took years.

These incidents taken individually wouldn't necessarily be enough to derail a campaign, but how they play into the "metanarrative" speaks volumes about how her campaign might fare in the fall. For Gore in 2000, mentioning "Love Canal" and "invented the internet" were all it took to remind voters of the media storyline that Gore was a serial exaggerator. In the months between now and the general election, it's hard to imagine that the same wouldn't happen to Hillary Clinton, with scattered references to "Northern Ireland", "NAFTA", and "Tuzla" making their way into unrelated campaign coverage and subtly undermining her campaign.

In fact, that narrative is already being shaped to a lesser extent as the Obama campaign capitalizes on recent polls showing that a majority of Americans don't believe that Clinton is trustworthy :

This honesty gap that separates Clinton from her two opponents will ultimately end her campaign, either in the primary or general elections. Whether or not any subsequent claims about Clinton are valid would be irrelevant (as Gore could attest) as long as they play into the preconceived notions that people have about the candidate. With a public that already distrusts her, getting frequently caught misspeaking (to use the Clinton campaign's preferred euphemism) only reinforces the media narrative that Hillary Clinton is a liar who will say anything it takes to become president.

Comments

[Herrington]

Huff people, you are truncating comments at line breaks. End of communication.

[patriotscholar]

If a politician lies to collect votes, gets those votes, then the truth is found out later, isn't that the same as taking votes away or disenfranchising voters?

[Ashall]

Hillary's campaign is stalling on another debate. Before this last phase of the campaign Hillary had everything going her way, but now that the truth on all these issues is coming out I don't think there's anything she could say to convince the public that she's not a liar. There were many things she said in those debates that some of us knew were false, but she said them so loudly and with such gusto she convinced most of the audience that she knew what she was talking about. I think reality is setting in on the Clinton campaign. Voters are much smarter and have better access to research this time around - they're almost impossible to bamboozle these days. LOL

[Plank]

THIS IS EXCELLENT NEWS FOR HILLARY!!!

[Herrington]

Metanarrative, good tag. The cynics believe that the public has a short memory. They do, but it is short for details and not for impressions. Impressions last. Redemption of some kind, if applied quickly and resolutely, like Obama's race speech, can turn the corner on the cementing of an impression. An unceasing drone of "misspeaking" has worked its way into the consciousness already. People don't need to cite chapter and verse. They will sum it up as she is a liar and leave it decided, looking at her with an increasing suspicion.

[celested9]

Right just as Obama "misspoke" when he said he didn't know about Wright's outrageous remarks. This is the silly season all right. More to come. Really Gregg, dragging in Al Gore. The so call serial exaggerator was a Rovian tactic and totally bogus just as the Swift Boaters were liars.

[nk007]

[jbatch]

Huh. Hillary is lying ... Greg's point is that she's feding the Rovian beast and she'll get creamed for it if she runs against McCain. And frankly, she deserves to get creamed for it ... she's a liar with no scrupples save ambition. And we deserve to lose if we elect her.

[Fabienne]

Obama never said he didn't know about some of Wright's "outrageous" remarks (which don't seem outrageous to this 61-year-old white woman); he said he was not in the church when during the time of the videotaped soundbites. It has since been proven he was correct as he was, I believe, in Miami at that time. Willliam Kristol apologized for "misspeaking". At any rate, if Americans don't want to know that many African Americans with a great deal of integrity are still angry with this country, then it doesn't bode well for race relations in the future. And if one believes racism is no longer alive and well here, watch the post-Katrina footage. If you believe that merely results from class-prejudice against the poor, ask yourself why so many African Americans are poor.

[jules7212]

Gregg - thank you. I have peace.

[kettletop]

If Hillary Clinton is so popular, why aren't more people showing they want her as a candidate and giving her the money to keep her campaign afloat. If Obama is unelectable, then why are so many more people giving $25 and $50 to his campaign? The market speaks!

[ljsfolly]

I want to know who is paying Maggie Williams bills? She says she is getting no payceck for working for Hillary. She cannot be worth so much money she can afford the free ride thing. Also the other advisors and Mark Penn being the whitest of them all are getting mega bucks while she gets nothing?

[hproberts]

interesting article. Greg, did you know that Vanity Fair published an expose about the beginnings of the "Gore's a pinocchio" stories. It was one of the best articles about the 2000 election I have read. I highly recommend it. It will open your eyes. I believe it was in a fall 2007 issue. Good reading!

[Eternal]

It's not the mistake that is the issue for me. It's telling the story again and again in the face of the truth. The video of her March 17 comments are cut short, if you see the full video the brings up general "Togo" to support her memory.

[jakela]

Dan Goldstein, a Psychology PhD at the London School of Economics and the editor of "Decision Science," has written a piece about whether Hillary Clinton lied or has "false memories" about her landing in Tulza. The piece is on his blog at Psychology Today. It is very, very funny. And I think it puts us into the right territory with this story: how can someone lie when they have to know that the media was there??? For that answer, we need a psychologist not a pundit. Here's the link to the story ("Hillary and the Snipers"): http://blogs.psychologytoday.com/blog/decisions-decisions

[Irie212]

What amazes me about Mrs.Clinto­n's lie isn't just the psychology of it, but the fact that it's apparently necessary: If she had any actual foreign policy experience she would claim it, no? but she doesn't so she has to fabricate transparent lies about Bosnia or Northern Ireland. It's bad enough having liars in public office; spare us foolish liars.

[jakela]

This is a GREAT one:

[Dahveed]

Character does matter. Clinton-McCain both have credibility problems. Clinton is a power-mad pathological liar. McCain is an egomaniac, "issue flip-flopping" liar. Screw his freaking war-story and her victim-ent­itled-to-i­t BS. Both of these old school shysters can stay on the public payroll until the end of their current Senate terms. Then send 'em back home. Neither deserves anything more.

[celested9]

Character does matter...w­hich is why I want Obama to be thoroughly scrutinized.

[outnow]

Hillary is dodging bullets about not dodging bullets. Her outsourcing deregulation schemes are causing loss of jobs and loss of homes. It is a good thing that Obama has not be around long enough to sign on to the neoliberal agenda and the DLC agenda of the Clintons. 35 years in Washington and I'd be a liar, too. Too many deals. Fresh blood needs to be installed, not the same old worn out agenda of the DLC and neocons.

[Egghead]

Thank you. I'd been wondering how it was that Al Gore got tagged as "the exaggerator" and she hasn't--yet.

[celested9]

And Obama is a "liar". (you know about Wright?)

[missjabez]

Because Hillary's got everyone looking towards Pennsylvania so it's hard to say to those voters "You don't get a vote".