Apparently Senator Clinton has been trotting out a story about how she had to evade sniper fire in Bosnia in 1996 when she was First Lady. This is not, as it turns out, a strict representation of reality. In fact, when she says that she had to evade sniper fire on the tarmac and had to run for her car with no greeting ceremony, what she should have said was that she did *not* have to evade sniper fire, there *was* a greeting ceremony, and she did *not* have to run for her car.
As it turns out, she was accompanied by Sinbad, Chelsea Clinton, and Sheryl Crow.
Sinbad [has said] that Clinton’s version of the trip is bunk. He described it as a feel-good USO tour. “I think the only ‘red-phone’ moment was: ‘Do we eat here or at the next place,'” Sinbad told Akers recently.
. . .
Sinbad said the whole description is ridiculous. “What kind of president would say, ‘Hey, man, I can’t go ’cause I might get shot so I’m going to send my wife,'” Sinbad told Akers. “‘Oh, and take a guitar player and a comedian with you.'”
Again, my point is not that Sen. Clinton is unqualified to be President or that her experience as First Lady is inconsequential. I firmly believe that she kept up to speed with political issues during Bill Clinton’s Presidency and that her advise was more influential to him than that of your average First Lady. However, she was not President and her experience was not that of a President. She’s trying to encourage a vague conflation of her candidacy with Bill’s Presidency. And the conflation is intentionally kept vague so that she can embrace all of the good stuff about Bill’s Presidency while side-stepping the bad stuff. Furthermore, she’s being somewhat evasive about her actual experience as First Lady so that she can get the extra cred that would’ve come with having been President. In other words, she got greedy; and, so, she gets burned on her sniper fire flight of fancy.
Masson, in all fairness, the same guy who gave the “four pinochios” also added an update. Here it is:
Lissa Muscatine, who served as Hilary Clinton’s chief speechwriter in 1996 and accompanied her on the Bosnia trip, feels that I have failed to provide a full picture of what took place. She gave me her “vivid recollections” of the arrival in Tuzla, which I quote below:
I was on the plane with then First Lady Hillary Clinton for the trip from Germany into Bosnia in 1996. We were put on a C17– a plane capable of steep ascents and descents — precisely because we were flying into what was considered a combat zone. We were issued flak jackets for the final leg because of possible sniper fire near Tuzla. As an additional precaution, the First Lady and Chelsea were moved to the armored cockpit for the descent into Tuzla. We were told that a welcoming ceremony on the tarmac might be canceled because of sniper fire in the hills surrounding the air strip. From Tuzla, Hillary flew to two outposts in Bosnia with gunships escorting her helicopter.
Precautions against sniper fire doesn’t equal sniper fire.
Welcoming ceremony might be canceled doesn’t equal welcoming ceremony was canceled.
And, none of that equals running to cars with their heads down.
The only possible response from Sen. Clinton at this point is that, on further reflection, it didn’t happen the way she said it happened. And I don’t really think it was a deliberate lie. It would’ve been a really stupid deliberate lie. I think memories are faulty. She should come clean about it. These attempts at justification by her surrogates are fairly lame.
By the way, Doug, were you able to attend last night’s event at WLHS with Bill Clinton speaking? I have some personal grouses with the event, but basically good energy.
It did NOT change my view that Hillary would NOT be the best candidate though. Make her Majority Leader of the Senate and move on.
I was not able to go see the event. My wife, Amy, did though. She even wrote a blog post. I stayed home with the kids.
“She’s trying to encourage a vague conflation of her candidacy with Bill’s Presidency. And the conflation is intentionally kept vague so that she can embrace all of the good stuff about Bill’s Presidency while side-stepping the bad stuff.”
And the Press has been letting her get away with it.
You think you would remember running from sniper fire. She said it the first time she misspoke in 12 years; that might come back to haunt Hillary “Mount Everest-Not” Clinton.
She was asked about the sniper remark four times and she stood by her remarks each time.
There were 4000 armed men, Navy SEALS, Secret Service, 40 tanks, and attack helicopters overhead. As one military man said, “There was nobody coughing the day she showed upâ€. It is insulting to those protecting her.
In 2000, Al Gore used to continually exaggerate on small matters,and it’s part of why he lost credibilty on larger issues.Compared to GW’s downhome humor and naive objectivity,GW came across as ‘a little’ inexperienced but a well-meaning straight shooter,in other words the perfect presidential candidate.Most look back and think how much better the boring, long-winded Gore would have been as president.
Hillary Clinton seems to be taking on a sinister air,reminiscent of a jilted soap opera matron who isn’t going to stop til she gets what’s rightfully due her. She’s already downclassed herself to ‘unacceptable’ for some of us who would have gladly voted for her.
Clinton campaign doesn’t seem to have top notch strategists.Obama is lying in the shade down in Virgin Islands and still had his tax records posted on internet,a few minutes after Clinton said he should be should more forthcoming with his tax returns.Obama has always been a step ahead.
No one else picked up and carried the new Clinton strategem on how she could win the nomination: that is, by counting popular vote rather than delegates, so Bayh hasn’t been much help to her.
Yesteday the Cinton spokespeople repeated, one by one, that Hillary’s condemnation of Rev Wright( she,herself, would have left the congregation ) was just her personal opinion and was in no way attacking Obama personally for continued support for his pastor, so that must have been seen as a postive strategy by the Clinton strategists.
It should be a warning to the Clinton campaign that an oldish, retired school teacher, entering into my dotage years, can explain the inner strategy of the Clinton strategists.
Most of Gore’s exaggerations weren’t exaggerations at all, but were misquotes by the press on a level that probably would have gotten them flunked out of journalism school.