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Clinton's Bosnia Lie: Why Padding Your 3 am Ready Resume Is a Bad Idea

Posted by Pam Spaulding, Pam's House Blend at 5:04 AM on March 25, 2008.


Now help me out here -- why lie about this?
Hillary in Bosnia in 1996

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What is wrong with Hillary Clinton and her advisers? In an effort to promote her foreign policy experience -- and thus draw a contrast between the NY senator and Barack Obama, she boldly claimed on March 17 that she went on a harrowing, brave trip to Bosnia in 1996 as First Lady.

"I certainly do remember that trip to Bosnia... we came in in an evasive maneuver... I remember landing under sniper fire... there was no greeting ceremony... we ran with our heads down, we basically were told to run to our cars... there was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, we basically were told to run to our cars, that is what happened."
Now as First Lady, she and her crack team of high-paid consultants should have known that there were not only reporters on the trip (and video) to blow away this account. But no, they stuck to their story, and the end result is that the video evidence has surfaced, making her look like a prevaricating resume padder.

And the Washington Post has a blow-by-blow account of the fibbing and the facts, including her 1996 traveling companion on that trip, the comedian Sinbad, who has no idea where Clinton's account came from.
Harrowing? Not that Sinbad recalls. He just remembers it being a USO tour to buck up the troops amid a much worse situation than he had imagined between the Bosnians and Serbs.
..."I never felt that I was in a dangerous position. I never felt being in a sense of peril, or 'Oh, God, I hope I'm going to be OK when I get out of this helicopter or when I get out of his tank.'"Now help me out here -- why lie about this? It doesn't make any sense, and only allows for this nonsense to be raised in the general election if she were to be the Dem nominee. I know pols can be professional prevaricators, but usually it's to their benefit, not their embarrassment.

If you think the above is bad, a media conference call today with the Clinton team managed to make things worse. Howard Wolfson actually said that Hillary "misspoke" about the Bosnia daredevil trip. It's pretty hard watching that video and seeing a mere slip of the tongue. Come on, people. You don't tout experience that you don't have. Though based on the campaigning so far, it's less about whether something is true or not, it's whether you can do damage to your opponent, which the GOP does so well. Swift Boating works, regardless of who's doing it. That's what they pay the big bucks to the consultants for.

AlterNet is a nonprofit organization and does not make political endorsements. The opinions expressed by its writers are their own.

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Tagged as: clinton, obama, bosnia, sinbad

Pam Spaulding blogs at Pam's House Blend.


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It is time for the 'super delegates'...
Posted by: voicefromafar on Mar 25, 2008 6:40 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
...to step up to the plate and put an end to this nonsense. The only thing that 'Team Clinton' is doing for America is ... well, they aren't doing a damn thing for America. All they are doing is hurting America, like they BOTH did with NAFTA, for example. Disgusting, cheeky wankers both.

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Started already?
Posted by: sawdust on Mar 25, 2008 6:48 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I hate to go black and white on this issue, but if "she" is going to lie to us all now, what will she do if she claws her way into the Oval Office? I shudder to think.

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she "misspoke"???
Posted by: Moira61 on Mar 25, 2008 6:51 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
gimme a break...if Obama or McCain made such an incredible lie Hillary would be jumping all over it. She's repulsive, I can't stand her.

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» RE: she "misspoke"??? Posted by: blackie4aces
Doing What Is Right, Not What Is Right-Wing
Posted by: QQOblivion on Mar 25, 2008 8:31 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Hillary, if she isn't just a Republican mole, should stop dividing the proverbial baby, and should step aside now. The big picture is that John McCain is a pro-war nutcase who could bring about nuclear Armageddon -- as a result of his temper, his lust for war, and the consultation of his frightening and bigoted "spiritual guides". But McCain, as a result of the infighting between the Democratic candidates, is pulling ahead in the polls. Hillary staying in the race is totally counter-productive to her own cause of winning the White House, in any case.
Do what is right, Hillary! Or is that beyond you?

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That girl with the flowers
Posted by: hurricane hugo on Mar 25, 2008 9:45 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
obviously learned nothing from the V-C.

:P

jdfu!

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How Many More Lies...
Posted by: djnoll on Mar 25, 2008 9:47 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
does this woman have to tell? Does the Democratic National Committee have such a spineless leadership that they cannot stand up to one woman and her husband and tell them to go home! She is tearing the Democratic Party apart in her lust for power and she is tearing apart this nation with her constant bickering with Obama about inconsequential things. She has not had an independent thought in that head of her's for years and co-opts policy ideas from anyone who is possibly more reasoned than she is. She did not have access to sensitive materials nor policy decision making meetings as First Lady. She did not put the needs of anyone except the insurance industry into her health plans then or now. She relocated to New York to run for the Senate, rather than return to Arkansas where she might face real prosecution for her part in Whitewater. She has padded her resume on foreign policy and been called a liar for it.

This woman is ambition personified and she does not care who she hurts or destroys, as long as she gets what she wants - which is the political power consolidated by her friends George W. Bush and Richard Cheney in the Executive Branch. And make no mistake, she will not choose Obama for the "Dream Team", she will choose her husband to be her vice presidential candidate because that is what they both want - total control of this nation's government to implement what they could not with a Republican Congress for 6 years. That is their real idea of a Dream Team. He is not barred from running for Vice President under our Constitution, and I am sure that they are well aware of that.

This woman is the most dangerous candidate we have running at the moment - she does not have the experience to lead and her ambition and desire to prove that she is badder than the boys is a bad combination in any woman with power. McCain is dangerous because he is a war mongering, unstable individual, but she is even more dangerous still. Always remember, females are the more deadly side of any species in nature, and this woman's lies and clear ambition to get all the power of the greatest nation in the world under her control is a frightening thing.

It is time for the DNC to grow a backbone and send her and her husband packing. Howard Dean should have done so a long time ago, but despite repeated calls, he has shown just what type of leader he is, so the DNC should be sending him packing with his friends.

America needs a good leader. If not Obama, then hopefully someone will show up on the national scene soon who can be the kind of leader this nation needs, because that is most assuredly not Hillary Rodham Clinton!

http://www.standanddeliveramerica.com

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» RE: How Many More Lies... Posted by: seacaptdon
» RE: How Many More Lies... Posted by: seacaptdon
» RE: How Many More Lies... Posted by: sui_generis
Superwoman, Superhero
Posted by: blackie4aces on Mar 25, 2008 9:58 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Clinton put up with public humiliation after public humiliation at the hands (or, more correctly, other body parts) of Bill Clinton for thirty years to be in the position she is now. She has demonstrably no more moral sense than her own raw and naked ambition. She literally drips with it like some noxious oil seeping from her pores. I truly think there is nothing she would not stoop to achieve her life's dream.

She has repeatedly lied-and repeatedly gotten caught doing it. She lied concerning the reading of the intelligence report upon which she supposedly cast the most important vote, the most important vote any people's representative can cast, of her brief career in the Senate. Then she lied again to cover the first lie, to wit: that her staff read it and briefed her. When that didn't work, she said that George Bush had tricked her. Clinton did not share credit with the writer of the insipid book It Takes a Village, for which the real author should be grateful but apparently isn't. She probably lied to the FBI during the investigations of File Gate. She has continuously misled and misrepresented her "experience." Now this latest, this totally unnecessary lie. The lying seems to serve no purpose. Is it simply out of control?

Clinton's major claim as a qualification for the presidency. As these claims are gradually eroded by various contradictions, new ones must be invented. Without the experience angle, what has she really got? Hero, anyone? That seemed to be the gist of the Bosnia invention. Hillary Clinton doing her duty risking her life and thel ife of her teenage daughter for the president and the good old USA. This while all this anti-American blather surrounding Obama is being stirred, whipped, and baked in the press. Hillary up on the experience quotient. Clinton on top in the "hero" category.

Compulsive liars can never be trusted. It is as if there is no real human being there and a facsimile is continuously being created on-the-run. There is also a very disturbing manipulative aspect to all this, the invention of reality to suit the particular circumstances of a particular moment. This is scary. Very scary. It would be quite unnerving if cousin Dick or niece Jane does it, though usually of no great consequence. It is terrifying and potentially of enormous impact when a president does it. Read any newspapers over the last five years?

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» RE: Superwoman, Superhero Posted by: seacaptdon
One trick pony
Posted by: mkdelta69 on Mar 25, 2008 3:52 PM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Pat S. Your boring the fuck out of me.

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» RE: One trick pony Posted by: Opinionator
Get Hillary out of the race no matter what she says. Where was
Posted by: Opinionator on Mar 25, 2008 4:35 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
she when the lights were out in the Oval Office? She is no damn good. And we do not need Free Willie cavorting with some poor shmuck like Monica. Besides which, where was Hillary when poor Willie couldn't rein his doggie in?

Barrack Obama is the only hope I see on the horizon.

It's time for the super-delegates to step up to the plate. And then we will see what kind of mince-meat Obama will make of McCain.

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Hillary Clinton--Rank Amateur
Posted by: blackie4aces on Mar 25, 2008 5:10 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Look, folks, it is readily apparent that the Lady Clinton is but a rank amateur. It is one thing to win a couple of state Senate races that half the electorate doesn't give a damn about against weak candidates when you are the ex-president's wife. It is quite another to run for the presidency of the United States. No place for amateurs.

This latest bit of getting caught in the absurd and ridiculous, not to say totally unnecessary, fabrication of her little war story lays it out pretty clearly. This person needs to get the hell out of the kitchen. Ethics aside, ability aside (when has she been effective other than stirring up an occasional shitstorm?), honesty aside, morality aside, we can't tolerate this level of nonsense. It's embarrassing.

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Huffington trying her best, to get McCain elected
Posted by: johnp on Mar 25, 2008 6:14 PM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Pam Spalding and everyone else at Huffington Post, is not doing anything here, except throwing red meat to the Hillary haters, in furtherance of their desire to see McCain in the White House. All the Hillary-haters come out of the woodwork, and do as expected. Sickening.

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» RE: To A "Typical" Clinton Supporter Posted by: blackie4aces
perhaps she mis-spoke or mis -identified at which local she came under fire.
Posted by: heyhick on Mar 27, 2008 1:27 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
If she mis-spoke, the obvious next question is; have you ever left a plane and had to rush and keep your head down to avoid sniper fire? Maybe it happened the next day, or week, or the week before in a different locale.

Does anybody actually believe the secret service would allow the first lady to depart a plane, let alone land a plane, under the threat of sniper fire.

HILLARY...congratulate Obama, and get out of the race. You are becoming a liability, to all of us.

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Madam Clinton, Commander-in-Chief! Reviewing troops in Bosnia
Posted by: giles on Mar 27, 2008 8:51 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
...or was it Madame Clinton,Commander-in-Chief? Either have kind of a nice ring! Don't you agree? To hear her talk about it...she's done it already. We just didn't know she was running the show while Willie was...Don't tell, don't ask!...Oh yeah! That's when it started! Shiver, shiver!People can't call her on anything anymore. They are too embarrased to do so! E'NAFTA that, please! Next!

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