March 25, 2008--Misspoke-ing
“So I misspoke,” Hilary Clinton said yesterday--no big deal--when the story she told on repeated occasions in recent weeks about her trip to Bosnia was exposed as considerably more than mere misspeaking.
We expect politicians and the rest of us on occasion to fib. Or, if you prefer to be euphemistic, "misspeak." To wiggle out of an embarrassing situation, to exaggerate slightly our importance, to show how assertive we were when asking for a raise.
But out-and-out lying about something of real significance, like how brave and intrepid you were in an extremely dangerous situation in order to show voters what a decisive and courageous commander-in-chief you would be, does not qualify as misspeaking.
By now the details of Senator Clinton’s lying, which have been dribbling out during the past few days, first in the blogisphere and now in the mainstream media, the actual facts about her trip are becoming well known and tell us a great deal about her character. (See linked NY Times article.)
As evidence that a picture is worth a thousand words, CBS broadcast, side-by-side, Senator Clinton last week again sharing the harrowing narrative of her landing in Tuzla and images of the actual landing ceremony at the airport. A landing that she dramatically said required her to be placed in and armored compartment of the C130 in which she was flying, had the plane taking evasive action as it approached the runway, and then she and her party having to dash across the runway “with my head down” to dodge the nearby sniper fire.
It was such a dangerous situation, she continued, that the traditional greeting ceremony on the tarmac needed to be cancelled.
But then on the split-screen we saw what really occurred. There was a large gathering of officials calmly awaiting her at the foot of the steps and even a 10 year-old girl there to give her flowers and read a poem she had written. All very charming and familiar. And all taking place calmly and clearly not with her or anyone else in danger.
As the story trickled out, the comedian Sinbad, who was a member of her party quipped, “The most dangerous thing about the trip was deciding where to have dinner.”
To which Senator Clinton dismissively replied, “Well, he’s a comedian.”
In fact when she repeated the story for the second or third time last week, she embellished it further--in a swaggering manner she told about how during her husband’s presidency the word around the West Wing was that when a place was too dangerous for the president to visit, they always said, “Send the First Lady.”
And we did see pictures of Hillary during her 82 trips overseas--riding elephants in India, observing dancers in Africa, and walking along the Great Wall in China. Almost always accompanied by Chelsea Clinton during school breaks. Including spring break in Bosnia because she was there at that allegedly-intrepid time along with Sinbad and Cheryl Crow.
Again Sinbad got it right: “If it was so dangerous would she have brought along her daughter plus a comedian and a singer?”
Hillary Clinton’s self-aggrandizing lie is so elaborate that to shrug it off as misspeaking doesn’t work. It is a desperate effort during a failing candidacy to underscore the extent and meaning of her “35 years of experience.” To show that she was more than just a bystander to history who made contributions to her husband’s presidency over dinner or via pillow talk. This is to underscore the assertion that theirs was a co-presidency and that qualifies her to be president now in her own right.
And just a day after the 4,000th U.S. soldier was killed in Iraq this failure to take responsibility for the truth about something so benign as a junket to the Balkans is a metaphoric version of not fessing up to the grievous strategic error she made in voting to "Authorize the Use of Military Force Against Iraq”--part of the title of the enabling legislation in the Senate.
She continues to refuse to acknowledge that she made a “mistake" and continues to claim that she she was duped by the Bush administration: In effect to say, "So I mis-voted."
We expect politicians and the rest of us on occasion to fib. Or, if you prefer to be euphemistic, "misspeak." To wiggle out of an embarrassing situation, to exaggerate slightly our importance, to show how assertive we were when asking for a raise.
But out-and-out lying about something of real significance, like how brave and intrepid you were in an extremely dangerous situation in order to show voters what a decisive and courageous commander-in-chief you would be, does not qualify as misspeaking.
By now the details of Senator Clinton’s lying, which have been dribbling out during the past few days, first in the blogisphere and now in the mainstream media, the actual facts about her trip are becoming well known and tell us a great deal about her character. (See linked NY Times article.)
As evidence that a picture is worth a thousand words, CBS broadcast, side-by-side, Senator Clinton last week again sharing the harrowing narrative of her landing in Tuzla and images of the actual landing ceremony at the airport. A landing that she dramatically said required her to be placed in and armored compartment of the C130 in which she was flying, had the plane taking evasive action as it approached the runway, and then she and her party having to dash across the runway “with my head down” to dodge the nearby sniper fire.
It was such a dangerous situation, she continued, that the traditional greeting ceremony on the tarmac needed to be cancelled.
But then on the split-screen we saw what really occurred. There was a large gathering of officials calmly awaiting her at the foot of the steps and even a 10 year-old girl there to give her flowers and read a poem she had written. All very charming and familiar. And all taking place calmly and clearly not with her or anyone else in danger.
As the story trickled out, the comedian Sinbad, who was a member of her party quipped, “The most dangerous thing about the trip was deciding where to have dinner.”
To which Senator Clinton dismissively replied, “Well, he’s a comedian.”
In fact when she repeated the story for the second or third time last week, she embellished it further--in a swaggering manner she told about how during her husband’s presidency the word around the West Wing was that when a place was too dangerous for the president to visit, they always said, “Send the First Lady.”
And we did see pictures of Hillary during her 82 trips overseas--riding elephants in India, observing dancers in Africa, and walking along the Great Wall in China. Almost always accompanied by Chelsea Clinton during school breaks. Including spring break in Bosnia because she was there at that allegedly-intrepid time along with Sinbad and Cheryl Crow.
Again Sinbad got it right: “If it was so dangerous would she have brought along her daughter plus a comedian and a singer?”
Hillary Clinton’s self-aggrandizing lie is so elaborate that to shrug it off as misspeaking doesn’t work. It is a desperate effort during a failing candidacy to underscore the extent and meaning of her “35 years of experience.” To show that she was more than just a bystander to history who made contributions to her husband’s presidency over dinner or via pillow talk. This is to underscore the assertion that theirs was a co-presidency and that qualifies her to be president now in her own right.
And just a day after the 4,000th U.S. soldier was killed in Iraq this failure to take responsibility for the truth about something so benign as a junket to the Balkans is a metaphoric version of not fessing up to the grievous strategic error she made in voting to "Authorize the Use of Military Force Against Iraq”--part of the title of the enabling legislation in the Senate.
She continues to refuse to acknowledge that she made a “mistake" and continues to claim that she she was duped by the Bush administration: In effect to say, "So I mis-voted."
posted by Steven Zwerling at
6:40 PM
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