Hillary Clinton's Bosnia Lie

by: Matt Stoller

Sat Mar 22, 2008 at 19:20


Via Matt Yglesias, here's what Clinton said about that trip.

I certainly do remember that trip to Bosnia, and as Togo said, there was a saying around the White House that if a place was too small, too poor, or too dangerous, the president couldn't go, so send the First Lady. That's where we went. I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.

Clinton's assertion that her vote for war in Iraq was not a vote for war has always rubbed me the wrong way. That said, I would be open to some explanation of how this episode and her recounting of it isn't dishonest.  The whole 'she's experienced' because she was first lady has always been kind of ridiculous, but much less ridiculous than the notion than voting for the war and refusing to acknowledge the mistake makes you serious or demonstrates some capacity to exercise good judgment.

Matt Stoller :: Hillary Clinton's Bosnia Lie

Tags: , , (All Tags)
Print Friendly View Send As Email
Hillary Clinton's Bosnia Lie | 76 comments
a straight out lie indeed (4.00 / 1)
and her recently released calender schedules corroborate this  clip. This is the arrival she had, welcomed and all safe with no "security scare" fanfare, in fact her 1st lady schedule include the 8yr old girl she's seen greeting in that Bosnia clip LOL
Can you verify this? (4.00 / 1)
n fact her 1st lady schedule include the 8yr old girl she's seen greeting in that Bosnia clip

Can you (or anyone) verify this is true? If so, it would be unfortunate timing for Sen. Clinton. The hard-facts refutation of her statement is bad enough, but for writers looking to cover this it would provide an opportunity to tie two stories together at once, which might give the story more legs...

Me | My Work | Future Majority

[ Parent ]
A poster on Daily Kos checked out the Clinton Library... (4.00 / 1)
Daily Kos Post: Hillary's Campaign-ending Lie (Updated) by nitpicker Sat Mar 22, 2008 at 01:58:10 PM PDT
http://www.dailykos.com/storyo...

Goto Page 468

http://www.clintonlibrary.gov/... [v. large pdf]

8:45 am WHEELS DOWN in Tuzla, Bosnia

8:55 am DEOBOARD
8:55 am ARRIVAL
Format:
-- Ambassor Menzies intros HRC
-- 8 year-old Bosnian Girl reads a poem to HRC
-- HRC greets 7th grade class
9:15 am DEPART Airport
       EN ROUTE Headquarters


[ Parent ]
Wow (0.00 / 0)
Thanks for the citation. That's what I call crowdsourcing!

Me | My Work | Future Majority
[ Parent ]
crowd-sourcing leading to the 'primary' source :-) (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent ]
More than one lie (4.00 / 1)
There's more than one lie in Clinton's statement.

Contrary to the claims of Hillary Clinton and former Army secretary Togo West, Bosnia was not "too dangerous" a place for President Clinton to visit in early 1996. In fact, the first Clinton to visit the Tuzla Air Force base was not Hillary, but Bill, on January 13, 1996.

Had Hillary Clinton's plane come "under sniper fire" in March 1996, we would certainly have heard about it long before now. Numerous reporters, including the Washington Post's John Pomfret, covered her trip. A review of nearly 100 news accounts of her visit shows that not a single newspaper or television station reported any security threat to the First Lady.


http://blog.washingtonpost.com...
[ Parent ]
Mistake? (4.00 / 2)
I'm an Obama supporter, but perhaps she made a mistake? Is there a chance she confused it with a different trip?

No... (4.00 / 1)
She has a pattern of doing this type of thing... She has a problem -- A 'big' problem... i.e. with the Truth...
[ Parent ]
Well (4.00 / 2)
Well the press told us that Al Gore was a big liar, and that was a completely false characterization. On at least one occasion, Gore confused facts from one trip with another.

Her account is so vivid that I find it hard to believe that a long time professional politician like her would say something like that unless she thought it was true.

Now if she can't come up with some reasonable explanation for this, I will also conclude that it was a wild exaggeration and perhaps an outright lie. But I'm going to wait until she comments on it.

PS: Reminder, I'm an Obama supporter. :)

[ Parent ]
No problem... I'll allow some time for this stuff to sink in... (0.00 / 0)
Also, while you're waiting for her to come up with a 'reasonable' explanation for her life under threat from sniper fire... might be an idea to look for her explanation on her NAFTA porkers as well ...

Clinton Lie Kills Her Credibility on Trade Policy by John Nicols [The Nation]
http://www.thenation.com/blogs...

PS.  Not getting at you... but really she does have a pattern of this sort of thing... fellow Obama supporter ;-)

[ Parent ]
"Life under threat" (0.00 / 0)
Just thought I'd point out that you made that part up.
[ Parent ]
Wow... and there's me thinking that bullets were dangerous (4.00 / 1)
my bad.
[ Parent ]
RE: Well (0.00 / 0)
As noted in the comments at Matt Yglesias' site, Hillary was challenged on the Bosnia story a couple of weeks ago giving her staff plenty of time to corroborate or correct the story.

But, then she repeated the story a week later in the GWU speech.

Staff incompetance? Who knows.

This like getting a spot on the Armed Services Committe, the war vote, the Iran vote, the cluster bomb vote, praising John McCain, Bill C. praising her and McCain's patriotism, is all intended to raise her national security cred (and negate the Republican advantage) with the Ohio Valley voters they seem to think will swing the election, so the issue in the Fall won't be national security/foreign policy but economic issues.


[ Parent ]
I agree except (4.00 / 1)
"...the issue in the Fall won't be national security/foreign policy but economic issues...

I don't think so...

the Republicans, Lieberman (+ our own neocon wing of the party) will wait maybe, say, around Summer (just before the Convention) to swing the topic from Economics to Security -- Iran, Terrorists, Doom, Danger, Fear etc.  Then, we will have the forces of Bush, McCain, Lieberman, AND Hillary all up against Obama.

Throw in the AIPAC enablers from both sides, and you'll have one big National Security love fest for the Fall.

Just my little prediction...

[ Parent ]
My prediction... read it here first folks!!! (4.00 / 1)
Israel flies into Iran and blows a shoe factory up and claims it was a nuclear something-or-other... Syria was just a dry run for Iran, my friends.

And you thought the whole Al Qaeda Iran thing was just a gaff right?!? Nah, McCain got the inside dope from Bush & Cheney's war fabrication department.

And watch the polls swing to McCain as the President fires up the fear machine and cranks the dial up to Armageddon.

[ Parent ]
Nah.... (4.00 / 1)
I think that if they did this without something like the Tonkin Gulf on steroids it would be the death knell of the Republican party. Frankly, anything short of a major terrorist attack on a US city AND Iran officially claiming credit while having their ambassador moon us at the UN will not do it.

The only independents who go for the GOP these days are the ones who can convince themselves that their local version and/or McCain are not as bat shit crazy as the current administration. If they push that bar then the entire brand will be done for a generation.

[ Parent ]
This country goes apeshit over a freakign dingy navigating next to a destroyer and you're talling me the American public ain't gonna buy it hook line and sinker? n/t (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent ]
People often persuade themselves of things not true (4.00 / 1)
And then come to sincerely believe they are true.

It is also a documented fact that most people remember events with themsleves at the center, playing a more important role than others remember.

Humility is not an inborn trait in most people, and particularly not politicians.

The most charitable thing is that in reviewing her life for things that would buff her resume, she "overimagined" this event, retold it to herself and came to believe it, like Reagan did so often.

The less charitable view is that she never imagined getting to late March with the nomination not wrapped up, and they scoured for new material under stress, and this was the result.

The least charitable is that she shamelessly and falsely burnished her credentials with an episode that really didn't happen that way at all.

Besides which, what does "coming under fire" have to do with leading the country?  Did Lincoln?  FDR?  This is just more of her fetishizing the military and military power.


John McCain--He's not who you think he is.

[ Parent ]
then let her apologize and correct. (0.00 / 0)
Simple enough?
[ Parent ]
Still waiting for her to apologize and correct her Iraq War vote n/t (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent ]
Agreed (0.00 / 0)
Although even the "most charitable" view on this still isn't that great. A Reaganesque penchant for self-deception and the fetishization of military power aren't exactly "on message" for her campaign.

Me | My Work | Future Majority
[ Parent ]
Well, yeah (4.00 / 2)
I mean, if you were going to pick something to lie about, would this really be it?

I'm sure she just misremembered it.  People do tend to blur memories together, invent things completely, and so on all the time.  Stories grow in the telling.  It's just that most of us don't have millions of people watching and video clips covering decades of our lives.  I have a hard time accurately remembering the details of a story that happened to me a few weeks ago, much less 12 years.

It's not a non-story - it perhaps deserves its moment in the sun as one data point on the "trustworthiness" issue and as a counterpoint to the idea that her time as a First Lady really gives her much meaningful experience.  But I wouldn't read a whole lot more into it than that.

[ Parent ]
Yeah... a bit like oh... Bush (0.00 / 0)
'False Flashbulb' Memories

Steve Friess writes in Newsweek: "It's well documented that President George W. Bush was in a Florida classroom on 9/11 when chief of staff Andrew Card told him a second plane had hit the World Trade Center. But how did Bush learn about the first crash? . . .

"On Dec. 4, 2001, and Jan. 5, 2002, Bush told audiences he saw the first plane hit the tower on TV before he entered the classroom. But he couldn't have seen it; nobody saw it live on TV. Between those recountings, on Dec. 20, Bush told The Washington Post that Karl Rove told him. This isn't to say the president is a fabulist. He's just exhibiting a prominent example of a common memory glitch, says UCLA psychology fellow Dan Greenberg, who published a paper this summer in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology called 'President Bush's False Flashbulb Memory of 9/11/01.'"

However, her trip to Bosnia was uneventful -- so where did her memory of sniper-fire come from...?   This from a woman who is apparently reknown for her "attention for detail"!

She has already shown to have comprehension problems by not reading the NIE and citing "Bogus Claims that Saddam Hussein had Links to Al-Qaeda."
http://100reasonsnottovoteforh...

Sorry, there's a pattern here.  She is not fit to be our nominee.

[ Parent ]
pattern indeed (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent ]
You never, ever misremember (4.00 / 3)
being under fire.  Never.
[ Parent ]
Right (0.00 / 0)
That's the part that makes this hard to pass off as a simple misunderstanding. I don't know all about Sen. Clinton's history, but it seems to me at least likely that she was never really in that situation, on that Bosnia trip or otherwise, that this is just fabulism.

That it's such an easy "gotcha" means it can't be intentionally crafted. It's the sort of un-truth that breeds inside a campaign (or presidential) bubble, where everyone's been echoing the "tested and ready" paradigm day in and day out for months on end. The idea become a story becomes a "fact," until it's not.

These sorts of fantasies happen to lots of social groups -- most of us experience it personally at one point or another -- but it certainly doesn't look great on the campaign trail. Especially, if the commentator above is correct, with the scheduling records coming out just now.

A serious gaffe indeed.

Me | My Work | Future Majority

[ Parent ]
Yes...Very Much Something to Lie About (4.00 / 1)
Yes.  This would be something to lie about.  Her story, as recounted in her speech, in an attempt to display herself as a brave woman, under fire, on an important journey.  It's a whopper used to enhance her image and importance.  Problem is, it was taped and showed the opposite.

In my mind, this creates a staggering blow to her credibility.  If she baldface lies about this incident, as little as it may appear, what else is she not telling the truth about?  Besides, what mother would take her daughter into a war zone?  I mean, really.  What kind of "judgement" is that?

[ Parent ]
Sinbad didn't seem to have any problem remembering (0.00 / 0)
http://blog.washingtonpost.com...

Clinton, during a late December campaign appearance in Iowa, described a hair-raising corkscrew landing in war-torn Bosnia, a trip she took with her then-teenage daughter, Chelsea. "They said there might be sniper fire," Clinton said.

Threat of bullets? Sinbad doesn't remember that, either.

"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.'"

In her Iowa stump speech, Clinton also said, "We used to say in the White House that if a place is too dangerous, too small or too poor, send the First Lady."

Say what? As Sinbad put it: "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...oh, and take a guitar player and a comedian with you.'"

This article is from March 11, six days before her speech recounting the "sniper fire."  Knowing that the records were coming out, you think at least she'd tweak the story to have it be a little more factually accurate.

[ Parent ]
So you're confident (0.00 / 0)
(1) That Sinbad's memory is perfect;
(2) That he is not lying;
(3) That he was with Clinton all the time she was there.

As for (1), and this is the main thing, not bloody likely.  Human memory of old events is shockingly inaccurate.

(2), no idea, but I do think it worthy of note that he's an Obama supporter (bottom of linked article), and I will also note that I have not relied on him for political reporting in the past.  

The combination of the fallibility of human memory and Sinbad's likely subconscious desire to slant things Obama's way could have a deadly effect on a very old recollection, no matter how honorable the gentleman's intent.

(3) I'm almost certain is not true.  The entertainment crew just went to the main base, but Clinton and a smaller group made 2 side-trips via helicopter to frontline bases.

The three-hour tour of the frontlines of the international peacekeeping mission were filled with the gritty reality of a military operation, a far cry from traditional first lady photo opportunities, and Mrs. Clinton seemed more than comfortable with that. CNN, 3/25/99

[ Parent ]
Problem is... (0.00 / 0)
with Hillary's track record -- and yes I have delved (somewhat) into memory research -- her episodes are verging on a disorder...

There comes a time when you have to look at a cigar and acknowledge that indeed it IS a cigar.

I commend your loyality but there comes a time to call a halt to the insanity.

[ Parent ]
War vote (4.00 / 2)
I've always found it fascinating that she wouldn't admit she made a mistake with her war vote.  I don't equate Hillary with Bush by any means, but I do find it interesting that neither of them will admit when they were wrong.  And I don't like that part of her personality.  Having a President who can't admit when they make a mistake and who just become more entrenched in their positions, like she did during the California debate, is troubling.

John McCain believes "Women shouldn't have a choice."
Ain't that the truth (0.00 / 0)
We need a president who can admit a mistake, so that he/she can learn from it and so the country can move on.

An inability to do so is a serious flaw in a president, and a real sign of the lack of "emotional intelligence"


.
[ Parent ]
I don't really care. (4.00 / 2)
    Both Obama and and Clinton are qualified to become president.  Clinton is inflating her resume...but the truth is that it difficult to get foreign policy experience before you become president.
   My theory is that this whole "experience" talking point is just a dog whistle which exists to reinforce the following points:

1. Clinton has been a national figure for 15 years.  The public is used to her.  Obama is new and scaaaary.

2. Clinton is older than Obama.  Obama is hip and scares older voters

3. Wait-your-turnism which suggests that Obama should run in a future election

None of these are good reasons to vote for Clinton.  There are certainly better ones than this.  

John McCain lets lobbyists shape his economic policy

A Clinton LIED??????? (0.00 / 0)
My oh My who wudda thunk it possible?

This I believe will have legs. Everyone knows she was lying and exaggerating. But this is too much. Especially the part that she used in one of her stump speeches where she said she had to dodge bullets when she landed in Bosnia. LMAO

No one is EVER really totally prepared to be president. That is why the best presidents are the ones who pick the best and brightest to advise them, and then have the judgement and guts to follow that advice.

So what you're saying is... (0.00 / 0)
So what you're saying is, essentially, that even though my wife has helped me prepare lessons for my classroom, has visited my room when I am lecturing, and has a college education, she's not qualified to teach for me when I run for office?
Maybe, maybe not (0.00 / 0)
No, she'd probably not be qualified to teach for you the day after you leave the classroom, but after six or eight years getting teacher's training of her own, she might be much more qualified than many of her peers.

Then again, if she had acted as one of your senior teacher's assistants for eight years in the classroom, then maybe she would be ready to take over on day one even without those eight years in the Senate teachers' school.    

[ Parent ]
Tracy Morgan said (4.00 / 2)
"If that were the case then Robin Givens would be the heavyweight champion of the world."

And if you mean, every college educated person can teach molecular biology, then no, no I dont, think they're qualified to teach. And if they are, then there is no difference between Quayle and Gore.

And there is a difference between Quayle and Gore. Ready on day one is trust and judgment.

--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky

[ Parent ]
I'm with Tina Fey. (0.00 / 0)
If you think Gore would sign on to be Obama's VP, you're dreaming (or maybe just high on too much hope).

Equating Hillary Clinton with Robin Givens is really just insulting, almost as insulting as equating her with Laura or Barbara Bush.

Let's not forget that Hillary Clinton was one of this nation's most influential lawyers before her husband became president, and she has significant accomplishments in her own right in the years before and since.    

[ Parent ]
Most influential lawyers??? (4.00 / 1)
Most influential lawyers?

You mean the diryt stuff that went on while she was at Rose?

OR

Maybe you mean ean when she was working on the board of Wallmart while they were still union busting?

Wow, yeah, if only we'd had more lawyers like her, maybe we wouldn't have to pay all those benefits to blue colar schmos, ehhh?


[ Parent ]
No (0.00 / 0)
I mean the National Law Journal which ranked her among the nation's 100 most influential lawyers, twice, in 1988 and 1991.  
[ Parent ]
Hillary Clinton will remain powerful (0.00 / 0)
as one of the most influential Senior Senators, if not Leader, for years to come. I am not discounting her qualifications, so much as deflating any fears her campaign had raised about Obama's fitness for office.

All experience for president is peripheral, because only presidents have experience, and "W", the one who has the most recent long experience, is a good argument against experience.  

--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky

[ Parent ]
Richardson seems to have a lot of foreign policy experience for a guy who ain't president. n/t (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent ]
One of the most Influential Lawyers? (0.00 / 0)
Hillary Clinton was absolutely NOT one of the nation's most influential lawyers.  She was an advocate for children, etc.  But she would not have been on any list of the nation's most influential lawyers.

Kind of reminds me of George H. W. Bush claiming that Clarence Thomas was the most highly qualified person for the supreme court (and the worthy replacement of Thurgood Marshall).  Just a we bit of hyperbole.  

If Hillary is compared to Laura Bush and Barbara Bush it is because she invites such comparisons with her claim of 35 years of experience, including time as First Lady.  How can we possibly think about such experience without making comparisons to the other recent First Ladies.

[ Parent ]
Wrong again (0.00 / 0)
"She was twice named by the National Law Journal as one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America, in 1988 and in 1991."
- Wikipedia.

I could follow up with links but this is common knowledge, fyi.  

This was an extremely influential person well before she was First Lady, and she was rising to influence even before she was First Lady of Arkansas with her work in politics and at the CDF.  

[ Parent ]
I think she just misremembered (4.00 / 4)
  It happens.

 I am no Clinton supporter -- I've been completely turned off by her right-wing campaign, and especially by her praise of John McCain, which is beyond the pale. But I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt on this. It was ten years ago, and human minds tend to conflate memories from time to time.

 That said, this doesn't mean the Republicans aren't going to do everything possible to smear her as a "liar" over this. Given that the Clinton campaign has shown absolutely no inclination to call out John McCain on his far more substantial lies, I submit that this further diminishes Clinton's qualifications as a strong opponent to McCain.

 Say what you will about Obama -- he WILL challenge McCain.  

"We judge ourselves by our ideals; others by their actions. It is a great convenience." -- Howard Zinn

You expect massive 'porkers' from the Republicans (0.00 / 0)
but when porkers comes from a Democrat, you must also look at the facts -- it's only fair.

It's not the first time she's been caught not telling the truth.  This does not bode well for a 'CHANGE' election when we need a President that doesn't try to mislead the American public.

Watergate reporter demolishes Hillary's career story
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/t...


[ Parent ]
Plus... did she misremember Northern Ireland as well? (0.00 / 0)
"...I helped to bring peace to Northern Ireland," she told CNN on Wednesday..."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...

h/t:
http://matthewyglesias.theatla...

[ Parent ]
Answer to your question (4.00 / 1)
According to other witnesses, there was a steep landing approach and the passengers were instructed to wear flak jackets because there had been a report of snipers in the hills.  It would be a normal feat of human memory for that to get exaggerated a little over time.  Recounting it slightly differently from how it happened is not a "lie."  It's "memory," an extremely fallible tool.

Secondly, after that landing and before the USO show that night, Clinton also visited, via armored helicopter, two front-line posts (Task Force Eagle Base, where the picture with the little girl was snapped, was the force HQ).  I don't believe Sinbad and Sheryl Crow went with her on that day-trip.

At a second outpost, Camp Bedrock, Mrs. Clinton visited a M.A.S.H. unit, the only full-service U.S. Army hospital in Bosnia. The three-hour tour of the frontlines of the international peacekeeping mission were filled with the gritty reality of a military operation, a far cry from traditional first lady photo opportunities, and Mrs. Clinton seemed more than comfortable with that. [CNN, 3/25/99].

A day later, the Charleston Gazette reported that "Protected by sharpshooters, Hillary Rodham Clinton swooped into a military zone by Black Hawk helicopter Monday...This trip to Bosnia marks the first time since Roosevelt that a first lady has voyaged to a potential combat zone..."

And by the way, while we're frantically playing gotcha over details in something Ms. Clinton later said about her trip to Bosnia, what's Obama's foreign policy experience?  Is that a far, far less interesting question?  I ask, because I never hear anybody talking about that at all.  Also because it's pretty close to non-existent, unless there is something I've missed.

Foreign Policy Experience (0.00 / 0)
Maybe if he had more of Hillary's foreign policy gravitas, he'd have been all for bombing Iraq into the stone age back in 2002.

All their supposed experience didn't help Cheney, McCain, Rumsfeld, or Hillary make the right decisions at the right time. So WTF good is experience if you don't exercise good judgement?

[ Parent ]
I'd rather stick to this subject (0.00 / 0)
JFTR, I don't defend Clinton's 2002 Iraq vote, but neither do I agree that the difference between the two candidates in '02 is the be-all and end-all in terms of questioning their judgments.  But I'd rather stick to the subject of this post, which is much narrower, and I'm only dipping my toes into the judgment subject to make sure I'm nto committing "admission by avoidance."  I'd suggest writing a diary about judgment if you want to discuss that.
[ Parent ]
OK, let's be narrow. (0.00 / 0)
There is a monumental difference between being in a very dangerous situation carrying the potential or even the high potential for danger and being physically, actually under fire by snipers.  I'm afraid that no degree of apology or dilution can render an outright falsehood a mere psychological foible or conflation.    
[ Parent ]
Back up and read what she said (0.00 / 0)
"I remember landing under sniper fire."

"Landing."  Do you think she was shaking a little girl's hand while she was "landing"?

No, of course, landing implies that she was in the plane and someone told her she was under or might come under sniper fire, something you'd never be aware of if you were a passenger in a large airplane unless you were told (or unless there was some kind of serious hit).  That's perfectly consistent with the account in the Post article from the staffer who was there.

She never said she had bullets whizzing past her ears, for pete's sake.  She said "landing under sniper fire."  It sounds like they were warned of sniper fire, had to wear these flak jackets, and made a steep approach, and that probably stirred her blood up a bit.  You've never slightly exaggerated something really exciting that happened to you 10 years ago?

And why, really, why to pick at this crap?  Despite the question asked above, it's most assuredly not a stone-cold lie; it's a matter of interpretation, it's a fact not really known, and a fact that has virtually nothing to do with intelligent selection of a President.  How about a little courteous assumption of good faith for once?

[ Parent ]
Go back and look at the video. (0.00 / 0)
She was wearing her bullet proof vest underneath her Walker Texas Ranger Poncho...  
[ Parent ]
She "misremembered" some very memorable details (0.00 / 0)
There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.

That's something you wouldn't misremember.

Not to mention the absurd claim that she (and her 16 year old daughter) would be sent to places too dangerous for her husband.  That claim insults our intelligence.

Sinbad, by the way, was trying valiantly, and hilariously, to raise attention to all this nonsense a couple weeks ago at Talkingpointmemo.com.

[ Parent ]
The "absurd claim" was a JOKE (0.00 / 0)
You think she was actually trying to claim the FLOTUS is used as some kind of meat decoy?  Jeez louise, you guys will pick at her over anything.  Give her a chance, treat her like a human being.

And I'm not sure exactly how memorable a "greeting ceremony" would've been to her, either.  She was 1st lady of AR for 12 years and 1st lady of the U.S. for 8 years, I suspect she's seen a greeting ceremony or two million along the way.

[ Parent ]
Then why say anything? (0.00 / 0)
She could just as easily brushed this whole thing off, but instead she fabricated a story of danger presumably to show that she is courageous under fire.  Spin it any way you want, but the facts are undeniable.
[ Parent ]
OK (4.00 / 2)
What aspects of the "policy" part of foreign policy does HRC's trip to Bosnia provide valuable experience for?  Knowing how to meet and greet little girls at airports?  Traveling with celebrities?  Being briefed on what's going on in a foreign involvement?

If any part of HRC's trip to Bosina is valuable "foreign policy experience", then Barack Obama's living in Indonesia as a child and learning to speak Indonesian is also valuable "foreign policy experience".  And so was his trip to Africa and his relationships with family members in Africa.  Obama has been on trips to Iraq, gotten the briefings.  I even saw a picture of him playing basketball in Iraq with U.S. troops.  Are you arguing that taking more of these kinds of trips makes HRC more qualified?  Isn't there some kind of diminishing return on these meet, greet and get briefed trips as far as what you can learn from that experience?

HRC's valuable "foreign policy experience" -- all of her meet, greet and be briefed trips -- that she gained while first lady for eight years did not, apparently, do much good when it came to deciding whether the U.S. should go to war against Iraq.  She compounded the mistake by voting for Lieberman-Kyle, thus demonstrating that whatever experience she had gotten on the Senate Armed Services Committee hadn't done her much good either.

If you grant HRC the "experience" she claims, then you have to marvel at her seeming inability to learn from that experience.  And if that's the case, if she is incapable of learning from her experience and applying it to new foreign policy quandries, then what is all Ms. Clinton's "experience" good for?

One might argue that Ms. Clinton's experience has enclosed her in a cocoon of the conventional Washington consensus view of the world and the U.S. (imperial) role in it.  Which is why she seems to keep making the same mistakes.  Her experience has made Ms. Clinton hidebound, stifled her ability to reason and given her an emotional stake in things continuing the way they are that prevents her from reacting appropriately when a new, dangerous, issue comes to the fore.

Either that or she's too much of a political coward to do what her experience tells her is the right thing to do.

[ Parent ]
He stood at public meeting about the oncoming war (4.00 / 2)
 . .and risked his political career by describing in exact detail why the Iraq invasion would be wrong, what would go wrong, what America would loose, who would die and what it would cost our economy. All the news channels, not just Fox, trumpeted an Invasion of Iraq as the most patriotic, undeniable, necessary, brilliant tactical triumph of the new century.  That is foresight. That is clear thinking. That is a commitment to ones principles. And that is integrity because there is no calculation that would give any political capital for so foolhardy a move.

Yet thats what he did. Then didnt cringe when he was attacked, and kept his council. He is proven exactly right, and his gut reason for opposing was ethical and moral and patriotic. It was based on what is good for the people of America.

Thats his experience, and for that I trust him to answer the phone, more than anyone else.

--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky

[ Parent ]
If that's your only reason then you are voting for a president based on the role of the die. Don't feel bad, many have voted based on less. n/t (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent ]
?????? (0.00 / 0)
Im sorry I dont know what you mean.

His risking his career was an accident? Seeing what would happen was lucky guess? Seeing what it would do to America is mere horoscope reading? Knowing it was wrong was serendipity?

If you mean we're lucky to have a man of integrity, fortunate to have a clear thinker, fated to have new leader worth fighting for, all this I agree with, but you could be more clear about your attribution of coincidence.

--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky

[ Parent ]
He gave a shout-out to AIPAC once, that's gotta count for something. (0.00 / 0)
Come on. US foregin policy consists of "Are you on board with Israel or does the Mossad have to send Leibermand to kill you?" End of story.  
[ Parent ]
WaPo account (0.00 / 0)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

All reports of the hairy landing I've seen come from a member of HRC's communications team, not an independent reporter.

[ Parent ]
And? (0.00 / 0)
Who do the reports of "not a hairy landing" come from?  Or does Clinton now automatically have to present written and photographic proof of every word she utters?  

This is getting ridiculous.

[ Parent ]
Yep ... it is getting ridiculous (0.00 / 0)
It's about time she withdrew gracefully.

She's becoming an embarrasment.

[ Parent ]
the point is ... (4.00 / 1)
The only folks who remember the Bosnia trip as fraught with danger and proving Sen. Clinton's "experience" are - apparently - Hillary and one of her comms staff. Reporters covering the story and others on the trip remember a rather standard First Lady visit ... two months after the President was there and with no snipers.

If Clinton had not lied, no one would be questioning her veracity.

And Matt points to what really matters - not Hillary's performance under non-dangerous conditions on this trip but her unfortunate unwillingness to admit when she makes a mistake.

[ Parent ]
If there were precautions taken on the landing (0.00 / 0)
Nobody who wasn't in the plane would know that, would they?

Even if she's wrong, how would you like to have the national media concentrating on your account of a day ten years ago?  Have you ever read any scholarly stuff on the reliability of human memory?  If you haven't, try it, it's obvious you'll be enlightened/

And who has spoken to what her landings were like at the other two bases she visited in Bosnia the same day>b? as this Task Force Eagle base visit that the jackals are concetrating on?  Do you know about those landings?  The ones where Sinbad wasn't present?  Where the little girl wasn't present?

If you don't, then why are you gleefully ravaging a Democratic Presidential candidate?  Why is everybody doing it, when they don't know?  Why did the Obama campaign start this?  Why do they tear at Clinton day after day after day with their "new politics"?

The ONLY personal attack Clinton has made on Obama is that he's not sufficiently experienced, and that's an issue that goes straight to governance.  They attack her as a human being constantly.

[ Parent ]
When was she shot at? (0.00 / 0)
The little girl was at Tuzla.  
[ Parent ]
Beats me (0.00 / 0)
But between you, me, and the guy that wrote this "story" in the WaPo, none of us was there.  I do know, though, that she had at least 3 landings in Bosnia that day, not 1.

[ Parent ]
No problem (4.00 / 3)
That said, I would be open to some explanation of how this episode and her recounting of it isn't dishonest.

1. There are parallel universes. This happened in the other one.

2. One person's "landing under sniper fire" is another person's "stopping to hug a small child."

3. There was a sniper. And, she was running. She is really that cool under fire.

4. You call that a greeting ceremony?

5. Oh, you mean THAT Bosnia.

John McCain doesn't care about Vets.


The Problem With Hillary (0.00 / 0)
You have to constantly ask  - well that depends on what "landing" means, that depends on what "supporting" means, that depends on what "authorizing" means.

Same with Bill. That depends on what "fairy tale" means, "patriotism" means.. you name it.  They operate in the shadow land of nothing means anything unless you need it to mean something at a particular moment and then the next moment it means nothing  at all again...

It is NOT possible to unite a country much less lead a country with this level of parsing to get at who and what they mean at any particular moment. NOT POSSIBLE.

It's too bad (0.00 / 0)
that the media won't cover this. That would hurt the narrative they are trying to push.
Full Context (4.00 / 1)

Replying to a previous entry .... (0.00 / 0)
coz apparently 'I' wasn't authorized to give a reply??

Mark Matson: Re: Steve Clemons:

Bias (0.00 / 0)
Wow, some people really can't see beyond their own biases, can they?  Sure Clemons is most likely in the Clinton camp, but he has been perfectly honest and has made several critical assessments of Clinton as well as Obama.  His critique of the NAFTA flap was to put up a video with no comment and he got on Clinton's case for the 3am ad.
You really can't see past you partisan nose, can you?  Sad, really.  And note, before you counter attack, I'm an Obama supporter.

And you'll notice he got this right.

sad, sad, sad

Subsequently... Nope he didn't get it right!

And absolutely, I STAND by my comments that money money money behind THINK THANKS influence those who are working the ropes... Total Naviety... to think otherwise...

Regardless of you being an Obama supporter... the money behind politics and the framing behind polictics IS relevant, is influencial and worth EXPLORING... including money money money funnelling or more recently being threatened to be WITHHELD from the Democratic Party and Superdelegates -- totally freakin RELEVANT.

Spare the indigation... I'm passed it.

Yours truly... and all that...

[ Parent ]
THINK TANKS... (0.00 / 0)
but the Thanks for benefactors was probably back there in my mind...
[ Parent ]
sigh...past it. (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent ]
Hillary's Plight (0.00 / 0)
I don't know how their little daughter survived in that house. They both lie alot. "I didn't have sexual relations with that woman". Remember that? If anything Obama is too forthcoming. The grandma thing was more than we needed to know. But no real harm done. We can't put a person into office who lies at the drop of a hat.  How will we know when she is telling us the truth or when she is lying through her teeth? As for McCain, no disrespect, but he always looks so tired.  It hurts to watch him somethimes.  I find myself waiting for him to topple over at any time!  I just want to say go home and take a nap. Even Mom looks better.  Yes, Obama is our best hope.  
Hillary Clinton's Bosnia Lie | 76 comments
USER MENU

Open Left Campaigns

SEARCH

   

Advanced Search

QUICK HITS
STATE BLOGS

Home | RSS/XML Feed | Register | Contact

  © OpenLeft 2007-2010, Powered by SoapBlox

Powered by: SoapBlox