"We Just Ran With Our Heads Down"

by hilzoy

A few days ago, Hillary Clinton described her 1996 trip to Bosnia:

"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."

Even before Sinbad challenged Clinton's account, I was skeptical: as I read somewhere (sorry, don't remember where), does it really make sense to suppose that if the trip was that dangerous, the President would have sent not just his wife but his only child on it?

Now, however, there is video of Clinton running with her head down through the hail of bullets. Except for, um, the running part, and the bullets part, and the part about the greeting ceremony being cancelled. It's worth watching to see the perils Senator Clinton endured. And it does support her story in one respect: as you can see in this picture, she did bend her head down on the tarmac, to hug an eight year old girl who had just read her a poem.

Harrowing stuff. No doubt all the nonexistent bullets flying around account for the fact that none of the reporters who were present mentioned any danger at the time. Obviously, they were so terrified that they repressed it all.

Honestly: there was no need for Clinton to do any of this. She did play a serious policy role in her husband's administration (even if she didn't help pass the Family and Medical Leave Act, as she claims.) The only reason for her to inflate a trip with Sinbad and Sheryl Crow into a serious diplomatic mission, and a trip to Northern Ireland involving "a visit to a women's drop-in centre and two business parks" into helping bring peace to Northern Ireland, is that by pretending to have been more involved in foreign policy than she really was, she can pretend that while Barack Obama isn't ready to be commander in chief, she is.

Frankly, though, the fact that she can't tell the difference between having an eight year old read her a poem on a tarmac and fleeing through a hail of bullets doesn't give me a lot of confidence in her grasp of military affairs. Who knows? If she were President, she might decide that she was under attack by helicopter gunships when she was actually standing in a perfectly peaceful receiving line at a state funeral, and declare war. If she thinks the video I linked to shows her running for safety in a hail of bullets, anything is possible.

Comments

[mightygodking]

A Clinton revealed to have an elastic definition of what actually happened?

I am shocked. Shocked, I say.

[John in Nashville]

Perhaps she regards truth as such a precious commodity that it should be used sparingly.

[felix culpa]

But yes. Let me restate that,
BUT YES.
The persistence and depth of her misjudgment about what people will be able to believe just keeps on amazing me. A comment I dropped elsewhere, somewhere well known only to the Wise Ones; for her to trumpet her triumphs among strange peoples when she somewhere somehow must have remembered her schedule was due to be published soon and would fail to support her claims: Well, I just couldn’t grasp it, and thus forced to grasp at straws, I figured; her campaign is FUBAR and it must be the squirmy Slimeball Penn’s fault.
But this sheds light.
The bogus spin is just a smokescreen.
She really thinks she did do those things she was talking about that aren’t (objectively) true. She isn’t hive-minded with Clever IsIs Bill. No.
She’s delusional.
They must know, and they’re humoring her.

[felix culpa]

We sure are living in interesting times.

[Mike Schilling]

To be fair, the woman wearing the sunglasses does look kind of scary.

[Mike Schilling]

And the little girl was reading Vogon poetry; it's a miracle Hilary and Chelsea survived.

[Johnny Pez]

To be fair, the woman wearing the sunglasses does look kind of scary.

What's even scarier is that Hillary seems completely oblivious to the fact that the sunglasses woman is sucking out the brains of the poetry girl. That sunglasses woman must have some serious mind control mojo.

[Jesurgislac]

Mmm.

You know, it would not amaze me if at some point on the visit to Bosnia in 1996 Hillary Clinton was at risk of sniper fire.

(I was trying to find dates for her visit, but unfortunately for a quick google, the Internet is clogged with posters unloading their crap on her. But fighting was going on through 1996 - a British soldier was killed in early November.)

And does it really matter if it happened when she arrived, or when she left, or at some point during her visit?

Or does it really matter that everyone should pile on and mock at the notion that a mere woman could possibly have ever been under fire? (Which is a fairly standard reaction, Ginmar has written, among male bloggers who have not themselves been in the military: their notion of courage is such that they can't stand the idea that a woman could have experienced something they themselves never have.)

There was a lot of mockery at one point that Clinton was claiming to have been part of the Northern Ireland peace process, because a right-wing politician mocked her participation: when Bernie Ahern confirms that yes, she was "hugely helpful", does this get much press?

Does anyone besides me remember how Hillary Clinton got trashed by the media in the 1990s? Am I the only person who is thoroughly skeptical of every "let's trash Clinton" story that comes down the pipeline?

Look: Obama is a good candidate for President. So is Clinton. A lot of this crap coming down is coming down on Clinton because she's a woman. Be skeptical. Don't just swallow the trash-baited hook. Clinton could still legitimately win the nomination. If she does, the trashflow is going to step up. If you're already part of the trashflow - if you already have a habit of assuming that if they say it about Hillary Clinton, it must be true - then how are you going to be any different from the media and the GOP who are fighting to get a Republican elected?

Found via Sideshow: Hillary Clinton was constantly attacked by the media, other Democrats and the GOP for playing too large a role in her husband’s administration.

Now that same media is falling all over itself to prove she didn’t. Proving a negative.

[liberal japonicus]

Jes, I'm really sympathetic to the point you make. But to have these memories 'with advantages', as Henry the V says, speaks to an ability to delude oneself, which is precisely the same quality that makes George Bush so dangerous, so I think that I view that as the underlying point of the post, though I am still considering what you say and trying to weigh it. So this is not an attempt to prove you wrong, but just to explore your point. When HRC suggested that she advised her husband to intervene in Rwanda, do you view this as a separate unrelated point or something that speaks to HRC's character and image of herself?

[Debbie (aussie)]

As I am not a US citizen, is it ok for me to giggle, just a little.

[Kevin Donoghue]

There was a lot of mockery at one point that Clinton was claiming to have been part of the Northern Ireland peace process, because a right-wing politician mocked her participation: when Bernie Ahern confirms that yes, she was "hugely helpful", does this get much press?

That's Bertie Ahern. He is not the most credible of witnesses. (Admittedly David Trimble and Tim Pat Coogan are not very reliable either, but Bertie is in a class of his own.) Years ago I watched a lengthy documentary in which Bill Clinton, Bertie Ahern and many others described how the peace process developed and I don't recall anyone even mentioning HRC. I've no doubt she played her part, but until recently I have seen no account in which she had anything more than a bit-part. The fact is she had nothing much to offer. Bill Clinton had a great deal to offer, both carrots and sticks.

[john miller]

Jes, please. Everytime somebody points out that Clinton is either greatly exaggerating or lying about her experience, thy are not doing it just because she is a woman.

She is running her campaign based upon certain experiences she is said to have. When it is found out that what she calims didn't happen. is everybody supposed to ignore it.

And the important thing, is she didn't need to make clams about things that didn't happen. She has a decent enough record without need to exaggerate it.

And Jes, this line "Or does it really matter that everyone should pile on and mock at the notion that a mere woman could possibly have ever been under fire?" is really beneath you. Show me one case of that happening.

[Jesurgislac]

When HRC suggested that she advised her husband to intervene in Rwanda, do you view this as a separate unrelated point or something that speaks to HRC's character and image of herself?

I think that it speaks to the character and image other people have of Hillary Clinton that they're sure she must be lying or deluded: she couldn't possibly have advised her husband about intervening in Rwanda and the Washington pundits not know about it at the time, because obviously, they had every conversation between the President and the First Lady taped.

[Jesurgislac]

Everytime somebody points out that Clinton is either greatly exaggerating or lying about her experience, thy are not doing it just because she is a woman.

Everytime there's a mass pileon to claim that Hillary Clinton is greatly exaggerating or lying, yeah, I do think they're doing this because she's a woman.

"Or does it really matter that everyone should pile on and mock at the notion that a mere woman could possibly have ever been under fire?" is really beneath you. Show me one case of that happening.

Try googling on Hillary Clinton Bosnia. Right now. You will find any number of bloggers - and sadly, I think I see more than a whiff of it in this post - who are getting all worked up because dammit, a gurl under fire?

Look. I keep swearing I will not take part in this - and I shouldn't. But goddamnit, yeah, it does make me mad to see supposedly sensible bloggers taking part in negative campaigning against one of the Democratic candidates, and this isn't the first time Hilzoy's done it, and this time it's not even as serious as the assertion that Clinton said McCain would be a better President than Obama - which is not quite true, either. It's just a pure let's-trash-Hillary story, and you know? If Hilzoy has confidence that Obama would be a good President, she need not take part in negative campaigning against Clinton.

[Phil]

Oh, for heaven's sake. Hillary Clinton is either lying about the incident she describes in the quote from the original post, or she is telling the truth, and neither option is contingent on her chromosomes or her genitals. It would appear from the available evidence that she is lying. Why she would do so and what it means, if anything, is for each individual voter to decide.

[hilzoy]

Jes: "And does it really matter if it happened when she arrived, or when she left, or at some point during her visit?"

To me, it doesn't matter per se, and if she hadn't actually claimed that she ran with her head down, etc., as part of making this story into one of her big foreign policy experiences, I would never have mentioned it. I did not make this matter. I did not cite this as part of my experience. (And an important part: it's one of the episodes, along with Rwanda, Macedonia, and Beijing, that she cites over and over.) She did.

Nor did I "just swallow the trash-baited hook." There's video. I didn't just decide to accept this because I had some antecedent notion of what could and couldn't have happened, or because I am unaware that sometimes people make things up about Clinton. I actually did check first, just as I did with the Rwanda stuff.

"Or does it really matter that everyone should pile on and mock at the notion that a mere woman could possibly have ever been under fire?"

I did not just pile on because it seemed absurd to me that a woman could possibly have been under fire. I'd be interested to know what in my previous posts suggests the possibility that I might have, or that I think, in any way, that women are not as fully capable of serving in combat as men.

I wrote this because I think that it matters that politicians not transparently lie to us. Moreover, as a blogger, one of the things I can do is to point out, and document, when they do. I don't try to hold my fire against Democrats. I don't think that I should countenance their lies just because I'm on their side.

In particular, I do not think of myself as campaigning at all, whether positively or negatively. I blog. If I wrote something unfair, I would hold that against myself as a writer, and would try to correct it. If someone else did, I would try to correct that (bearing in mind that I can't get to everything.) That, fwiw, was why I wrote about the Al Giordano mistake yesterday: it was getting traction on the internet, and it was false. I wrote to a couple of other bloggers behind the scenes, telling them it was false. It was a false anti-Clinton story. So sue me.

In this case, it was also funny. But what made it funny wasn't anything I did; it was the juxtaposition of what Clinton said and what the video showed. She didn't have to say what she did; if she hadn't, the fact that she went to Bosnia and had a normal tarmac ceremony would have been a non-issue.

I said in the post that I think Clinton could have just pointed to actual experience that she actually has. It's real. It exists. If she wanted foreign policy experience in particular, of which (imho) there isn't much before 2000, she could have pointed to some of her work in the Senate.

She didn't have to lie. But she did. And I think I should say so, whether or not she's on my side. I would also hope I've earned enough credibility not to be told that I do so because I can't imagine the idea of women under fire, though, of course, that is for others to judge.

[john miller]

You have the credibility, hilzoy. It is just that for some people (not Jes alone) criticism of a woman, or an African American, or a Catholic, Muslim, Jew, whatever, will automatically be seen through a lens that is implicitly looking for some discrimination.

Jusdt like I think that too many people are ready to cry racism when Obama is being criticized (for example, I did not see Ferraro's comments as racist), too many people are ready to cry "woman hater" when Clinton is criticized, and so on and so on.

This is part of what Obama tried to address in his speech, and how we need to move beyond knee-jerk reactions.

BTW, do you know when all the rest of the inflammatory Wright videos are going to be released? You know, the ones that are available to anybody and that represent the 20 years of ahte-spewing racist, anti-American comments he has made.

[Jake]

There's some comment about the Clintons that goes way back, to the effect that they sure do seem to have an interesting relationship with the truth.

It's a polite way of saying they're exceptionally skilled liars.

[socratic_me]

Jes, if you want to make the case that hilzoy is unfair in her criticisms of Hillary, good luck. But I would like to suggest you reconsider framing that argument in terms of hilzoy being driven by her blatant sexism. For anyone who has read this blog for any amount of time, that proposition is out and out ridiculous.

[Jesurgislac]

I said in the post that I think Clinton could have just pointed to actual experience that she actually has. It's real. It exists.

Yeah. She really did go to Bosnia, at a time when fighting was still going on. She really did help with the Northern Ireland peace process.

She really does have actual experience.

But when she talks about it, the reaction she gets from media, Democrats, and bloggers right and left is to nitpick and trash her.

And yes: this post is part of Democratic negative campaigning against Hillary Clinton. Whether you thought of it like that or not, Hilzoy: yes, it is.

You say you think it's important politicians don't lie. True. But not all lies are equally major. George W. Bush this week announced that The successes we are seeing in Iraq are undeniable. Michael Mukasey this week claimed that warrantless wiretapping was essential for intelligent gathering and that the FISA bill passed by Congress, which prevents telecoms from claiming immunity from prosecution when they obey criminal instructions from the administration, was somehow an obstruction to gathering intelligence. Dick Cheney went to Afghanistan this week, and, standing in Bagram Airbase where the US tortured several prisoners to death and shipped hundreds to indefinite extradjudicial imprisonment, said of Afghans that "They're trusting America to stand by them in this fight, and that trust is being repaid every day. Having liberated this country, the United States and our coalition partners have no intention of allowing extremists to shoot their way back into power."

These are lies that matter.

Was Hillary Clinton under fire in Bosnia? I don't know: I find it entirely plausible that she was - it wasn't a safe country when she went there. Does it matter if it didn't happen when she actually first arrived in Bosnia?

Do you really think that it matters so much that if Clinton did actually tell a deliberate lie about coming under fire in Bosnia, it would be better to publicise it, broadcast it, talk it up, make it the one thing all bloggers are discussing - in short, do your very best to ensure that if Clinton wins the nomination, McCain gets to be President?

I don't. I think, on balance, even if Clinton lied completely about ever having been under fire on Bosnia, it's not something that matters. It's not like McCain claiming that visiting Iraq was just like a shopping trip in downtown Baltimore. It's a lie - if it is a lie - that was purely self-aggrandising: that does no public harm.

I don't see any damned point in people who want a Democrat to win in November, doing negative campaigning against either Clinton or Obama. Let right-wing bloggers do that: they will.

[Frank]

I'm pretty much with Jes here. I'd like to add that I keep getting the feeling that you don't really get it. Obviously Obama is going to get the same kind of nitpicking after the convention. And since he is human some of it will be true.

By cooperating with the usual suspects while they smear Hillary, you are making them harder to ignore when, inevitably, they turn their guns on Obama.

[Tom S]

Rest assured that should Hillary get the nomination, the Republicans will trumpet her misstatement (lie) about her visit to Bosnia all over the airwaves. Which returns to the original question: why did she make such a flagrant and easily refutable misstatement in the first place?

Remember Al Gore?

[wonkie]

I don't think the crap that comes down on HRC comes down because she is a woman. If fact I think that she wouldn't have as amny people trying to defend her if she wasn't a woman.

Jusst think how we all mocked Bush for his pretensions of expertise and experience. Remember the codpeice?

I remember the nineties ,too. I remember the rise of the rightwing and how they attacked unfairly and dishonestly and persistantly. i also remember how too many Deomcrats, HRC included caved in a collaborated in stead of fighting back.

So I don't see any reason why I should give her a pass now becuase of stuff hse experienced a decade ago. She wants to be the standard bearer for our partry. I just as soon not have a standard bearer who sets herslef up for mockery but telling ridculous lies.

[Bill H]

These are lies that matter.

Someone who will tell lies that don't matter will also tell lies that do matter. In fact, it's even worse than that, because telling lies that don't matter is just plain stupid. You have very little, or nothing, to gain and a great deal to lose.

If I catch you in one single lie then I can never again trust that anything you say is the absolute truth.

[ThatLeftTurnInABQ]

Jes: Everytime there's a mass pileon to claim that Hillary Clinton is greatly exaggerating or lying, yeah, I do think they're doing this because she's a woman.

Since you didn't provide quotations demonstrating the use of gender biased language or other external evidence in this particular instance, are you arguing that because other writers on other blogs have demonstrated evidence of bias it necessarily follows that everyone else who looks at the same topic and draws unflattering conclusion regarding Hillary is also similarly guilty? Or are you saying that you can look into the hearts and minds of the people who post on this blog and know what they are thinking and feeling? If the latter, could you please present the evidence. Or is this based on your superior mind reading ability?

When I was growing up, my parents taught me that someone is lying when they tell you something which is not true and which they know not to be true, with the intent to mislead you. For some reason I don't recall receiving any instructions about using the gender of the person speaking as a modifier to this construction.

If Hillary's gender is what leads an observer to unfairly assume mendacity on her part, then we could prove this by finding someone who is similar to her in as many salient characteristics as possible except for being male, and check to see if a greater presumption of truthfulness has been extended to that person. Bill Clinton comes to mind - if you can find a closer political counterpart then please make suggestions. I submit that most of the people I've encountered are just as suspicious of Bill as they are of Hillary. YMMV.

[Beren]

Sorry Jes, I really like a lot of your comments and insights, but you've just reminded me why, despite being utterly appalled by the mess made by Bush, Cheney, et al. I still have to call myself an independent, and not a Democrat: I'm not willing to give politicians a pass for misbehavior just because they're "on our side". They may be. But if we keep making that argument, soon they won't really be. The more we let them get away with, the less they'll really represent us.

You point out that Clinton's lie is less of a lie than Cheney's and Bush's. Well gosh, by that standard I don't know whether anyone's lies would be of much account. If politicians deserve a pass for willful misrepresentation of the facts just because they're Democrats running against Republicans and their lies are less serious, substantively than Cheney's, then... Well there goes any and all hope of accountability from our politicians, I think.

I'm sure it must have been frustrating to wade through a bunch of misogynist comments when you googled Clinton's time in Bosnia. And Lord knows I've written some rather emotional posts after wading through the inter-muck. But the charge of sexism here (on this board, against hilzoy) is, frankly, ridiculous. Nothing that hilzoy said was remotely driven by sexism, but by the beautiful dichotomy between what Clinton said had happened and the video of what actually happened.

I have to say I was also very skeptical of this story, even before the video. Not because of HRC's gender, but because, as hilzoy says, it seems very unlikely that the White House would send the first lady and first child into sniper fire, and if they did, it would be a monumental screw-up that would result in some firings. I would have been just as skeptical if Bill Clinton had made the claim about himself. The supremely cautious White House staff doesn't, as a rule, send our presidents or their families into such situations.

I grew up in a Foreign Service family, and I remember (from a teenager's perspective, of course) the massive disruption that occurred in an embassy when a congressman or senator was going to visit, let alone a member of the first family. All sorts of careful planning goes into it, their staffs are generally pretty big and extremely protective. An episode like this with sniper fire is something they would have worried about beforehand and taken all sorts of steps to avoid.

At any rate, the point is that it didn't happen, and Hillary didn't have to say that it did. As you say it's possible (though I think it's unlikely [and not because of her gender]) that Hillary came under fire in Bosnia. But that's not what she said. What she said was a lie.

Now maybe it was one of those lies that was meant to illustrate a truth. But I think those show a kind of arrogance, an attitude that the speaker should decide what the audience "needs to know" and what it doesn't. Like if I had posted that I had actually been a foreign service officer, instead of just the son of one, because after all, the _point_ was that I knew something about how embassies worked, and after all, you might not take me seriously if I just told the truth, etc., etc.

Ultimately, if we want honesty from our politicians, we have to demand it ourselves, both from those on our side and those on the opposing side.

[Turbulence]

Jes,

I think Clinton's lies matter a great deal right now: we're trying to decide on whether or not she'll be the nominee, which means making a determination of her electability. We can't do anything about Bush's lies or Mukasey's lies right now: its too late and our stupid system of governance doesn't give us many options after these liars are elected/confirmed. But its not too late for Clinton, even though it soon will be.

More than the electability, this particular lie concerns me because of what it says about her judgment. Clinton's campaign is in the red (for the primary race) and she's far behind...I can understand how that situation might make anyone desperate, but if one's judgment really is so poor that such desperation compels them to tell such easily disproved lies, then I don't think they should be allowed anywhere near executive authority.

[John]

The Dayton Peace Accords were in 1995, no? So the war was over by the time Clinton visited.

Also, does "there was a saying around the White House that if a place was too...dangerous, the president couldn't go, so send the First Lady" even make the vaguest degree of sense? I can't believe she was able to get away with saying such a ridiculous thing.

[Donald Johnson]

"Rest assured that should Hillary get the nomination, the Republicans will trumpet her misstatement (lie) about her visit to Bosnia all over the airwaves. Which returns to the original question: why did she make such a flagrant and easily refutable misstatement in the first place?

Remember Al Gore?"

The example of Al Gore may not illustrate what you think it illustrates. Gore was unfairly trashed for things he never said.

Otherwise, though, good point, assuming HRC is completely making up the sniper fire. If she did come under fire at some point (and I have no idea), then I'd say she wasn't lying, just remembering the details wrong.

[ThatLeftTurnInABQ]

Jes: You say you think it's important politicians don't lie. True. But not all lies are equally major.

... followed by examples of lies by Bush admin. officials regarding serious matters...

These are lies that matter.

Was Hillary Clinton under fire in Bosnia? I don't know: I find it entirely plausible that she was - it wasn't a safe country when she went there. Does it matter if it didn't happen when she actually first arrived in Bosnia?

Do you really think that it matters so much that if Clinton did actually tell a deliberate lie about coming under fire in Bosnia, it would be better to publicise it, broadcast it, talk it up, make it the one thing all bloggers are discussing - in short, do your very best to ensure that if Clinton wins the nomination, McCain gets to be President?

Jes,
This is a very good point, but my take on little lies vs. big lies differs from yours. You are entirely correct that big lies (e.g., lies about policy decisions that will affect the lives of many people) are far more important than lies regarding trivia. I also agree that it would be ridiculous and impractical for us to expect that a politician will never lie, fib, shade the truth, hedge, or otherwise be less than totally honest with us on occasion, simply because they are human like the rest of us, and that is what people do.

The problem with trying to excuse the little lies and watch out for the big lies is that big lies are rarely ones we can see ahead of time. Especially on issues of important policy, ambiguity and complexity are common and it is much more difficult to detect a whopper beforehand than with the benefit of hindsight. Look at how many otherwise sensible people were fooled by Bush on the eve of the Iraq war, including HRC (if she is to be believed on her AUMF vote). We rarely have the chance to call a political figure on a big lie that matters before it happens.

So how do we protect ourselves from the big lie and its impact? One way we can do this is to judge the performance of a political figure on the subject of small lies, and then extrapolate upwards. If someone is going to lie to us about little things that hardly matter, why should we expect them to be more truthful when more is at stake?

One of the things that I do when evaluating small lies is to ask myself some questions:

How difficult would it have been for them to tell the truth rather than to lie? How much did they have to gain by lying? How plausible was the lie? Where does it fall on the spectrum of bold faced lies, semi-lies, half-truths, and concealed information? How risky was the lie, i.e., how likely was it that the person telling the lie knew they could be contradicted by evidence? What does this lie tell me about this person's attitude towards risk-reward (or cost-benefit) analysis? What does this lie tell me about this person's estimate of the level of intelligence amongst the audience being told the lie (i.e., do they think we're stupid)?

All of these things go into an evaluation of the liar's character. Even people with good character will lie on occasion, and there is a continuous spectrum of grays between little white lies and monstrously toxic lies. Part of the process of evaluating a potential president is figuring out not whether they will lie or not, but to what degree they are telling bad lies.

One of the things that I feel very uncomfortable with Hillary on (in a comparative sense vs. the alternatives) is that she tells bad lies (which are little). That is, from my standpoint her lies are far too frequently in areas where there was little to gain by lying, the lie was likely to be exposed, and it suggests that she thinks we are stupid.

This Bosnia visit example is just the latest in a long serious of poor quality little lies coming from her. That is not a good sign going forward - it suggests to me that she will be more likely to engage in big lies, like the sort you quoted previously coming from Bush admin. officials, if she is elected.

[russell]

Am I the only person who is thoroughly skeptical of every "let's trash Clinton" story that comes down the pipeline?

Nope.

A lot of this crap coming down is coming down on Clinton because she's a woman.

No doubt some is. Some is because her last name is Clinton. Some is because she doesn't have the personal charm we like our politicians to have, and so people just plain don't like her.

Obviously Obama is going to get the same kind of nitpicking after the convention. And since he is human some of it will be true.

Before and after, actually, but other than that quibble, you got that right.

Maybe Clinton honestly misremembers the events. Maybe she's confusing two different events with each other. Maybe she's inflated the drama of the event in her own mind to suit some exaggerated sense of her own importance. Maybe she's lying like a rug.

None of us know, because we can't read her mind.

Whatever the case, I'm not sure what good end is served by picking over stuff like this. I don't see a constructive point to it.

Thanks -

[now_what]

McCain thanks you for this commercial.

[hilzoy]

For what it's worth, I didn't bother with Bush's lies because I assume that no one reading this blog would need to have them pointed out, or would be surprised to learn that he places no value on the truth. I also don't think it matters much what he says about whether we're succeeding in Iraq: I don't see many people being inclined to believe him, other than the ones who truly have drunk the Kool-Aid.

If Jes wants to think about what I do as campaigning, fine. Personally, I do not. I also think that if I did, I would regard my credibility as a valuable asset.

Again: I did not leap to the conclusion that this story was false. I did not just blithely post about it without bothering to ascertain the truth. I do not believe that anything in this post reflects prejudice, as opposed to what happened when I read Clinton's accounts, which she has repeated on a number of different occasions, and compared them to the words of other people on that same trip, as well as to the video of the events she described. Frankly, I can't imagine what, other than the possibility of a Cartesian evil demon, would lead me to doubt that Clinton was just plain wrong about a matter she claims to remember, and might easily have checked.

As far as I can remember, I have not claimed to know what Jes' motivations for making her various comments are. When she attacks someone, I do not ascribe it to sexism or racism or any other ism. I certainly wouldn't put any of her comments down to an inability to imagine women in combat without a whole lot of evidence.

[wonkie]

Exaggerating her experiences in order to make herself look more experienced isn't as a bad as lying to Congress about a war, of course.

It does show bad judgement, however. HRC has a pattern of making decisioons in order to get short term benefits but which do long term harm. The best example is her vote for the war which was almost certaily the result of political calcualtion: she intended to run for President and thought a "yes" vote would serve her batter than a "no," Wrong. In this case she thought it would help her in her campaign if she disparaged Obama as lacking in experience. Apparently her team didn't stop to think that by raising this issue she would have to discuss her experience. Once thaht quaestio was asked of her she came up with answers wheich looked good for a bout five minutes, but ultimatley makeher look , as the Irish politician put it, "a wee bit silly".

There are lots of examples of this shortterm thinking: the failure to plan for after Super Tuesday is another.

Female or not she isn't an effective manager. And I don't think I'm feeding the rightwing by saying this; they're sharpe eonugh to dfigure it out on their own.

On the other had starting the "empty suit" meme which is just flat not true is an example of creating a meme for the right to us against us.

[Gary Farber]

"when Bernie Ahern confirms that yes, she was 'hugely helpful, does this get much press?"

Do you have some text to link to, rather than a video many can't see, and you offer no transcript to?

Thanks.

[Gary Farber]

Hmm, Jes's video link post also has some links; here is a text:

[...] Mr. Ahern called Mrs. Clinton “hugely helpful” in the process both as first lady and as a U.S. senator, and suggested some of the criticism of her are unfair.

Mr. Ahern addressed the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick of Lackawanna County on Sunday and gave a feel-good talk about the unity of Ireland and the United States.

Before taking the podium, he discussed the tough negotiations between the Irish and English in the 1990s that would lead to power-sharing and peace in Northern Ireland.

After marching in Scranton’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade Saturday, Mrs. Clinton released a Northern Ireland position paper, citing it as evidence of foreign policy experience she has and that her opponent, Barack Obama, does not. In a National Public Radio interview earlier this month, she described her role as “instrumental.”

Those involved in the Northern Ireland negotiations have been weighing in.

Moderate Catholic leader John Hume credited Mrs. Clinton with speaking to leaders and opinion makers on all sides, making countless phone calls and urging them forward. Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams credits Mrs. Clinton with playing “an important role.”

Peter King, an Ulster Unionist Party negotiator was quoted as saying “Hillary Clinton was totally invisible at the actual negotiations.”

Lord Trimble, of Lisnagarvey, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and former First Minister of Northern Ireland characterized Mrs. Clinton’s claims as a “wee bit silly,” adding that being a cheerleader is different from being a principal player.

Mr. Ahern said the Clintons were a force in the process, even if they were not directly involved.

“She was the first lady of the United States, not a party leader in Northern Ireland,” Mr. Ahern said. “No one would expect her to get into the nitty-gritty of the process.”

He said the Clintons made three visits to the nation and that Mrs. Clinton continued to be engaged ever since.

“Any fair observation would find that both Hillary and Bill Clinton made peace in Ireland a priority while they were in the White House and after,” he said.

I see no reason this all shouldn't be given more press. HTH.

[Jesurgislac]

The Dayton Peace Accords were in 1995, no? So the war was over by the time Clinton visited.

Yeah. Like the war in Iraq is over. (Well, no, not that bad. But "the war is over" seldom means "so the shooting has stopped".) My recollection was of British casualties still occurring in 1996, and yes: "Lance Corporal Kevin Mark Pawley, Royal Logistic Corps (RLC), aged 23, died as a result of a shooting in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegowina, on 1 December 1996." link

And no, FWIW, I do not think Hilzoy is sexist. I do, however, think that the reasons for the concerted hate-on on Hillary Clinton are sexist; and that, in particular, the reason why this particular incident has been picked out, made much of, and declared to be Very Important is because it was a reference to being under fire by a woman.

And I stand by everything I said about it being entirely damned stupid for supporters of either Democratic candidate to take part in negative campaigning against the other candidate, which this post is.

[byringman]

the reason why this particular incident has been picked out, made much of, and declared to be Very Important is because it was a reference to being under fire by a woman.

Bull. Her claims already seemed far-fetched. Copious evidence, including video evidence, has now exposed her 'bullet-dodging' to be--as expected--your standard VIP gladhanding trip. This gets play because the dichotomy is amusing.

You continue to discredit feminism by blatantly holding a woman candidate to much lower standards of probity than her male competitors, and by attributing any criticism to gender bias.

[Slartibartfast]

If I cared at all about this, I would so be digging into a huge bowl of popcorn just now.

But not because HRC is a woman, just to get that out in the open.

But now I've got laundry to fold, so carry on.

[Slartibartfast]

It'd be just as offensive if we let her slide on this, because of her womanhood. That'd be my guess, anyhow.

Really: folding, now.

[byrningman]

Really the only basis any of the 3 candidates has for foreign policy credibility comes from their records and pronouncements as senators. In all 3 cases, I personally don't give much credit for bloviating on various senatorial oversight committees. I think McCain loses for being increasingly deranged on foriegn policy issues; Clinton loses for basically being publicly wrong on all of the major issues over the past few years, but with an asterisk because I do feel that a woman candidate needs to err on the side of hawkishness; Obama wins for generally sounding intelligent and sane (if uninspired) on foreign policy issues, a rare accomplishment these days sadly.

[John in Nashville]

"And I stand by everything I said about it being entirely damned stupid for supporters of either Democratic candidate to take part in negative campaigning against the other candidate . . ."

Would the same reasoning apply to a Democratic candidate suggesting that John McCain can cross the Commander-in-Chief threshold, whatever that means, but Barack Obama cannot?

Damned fool statements like that suggest that Senator Clinton prefers a McCain presidency to an Obama presidency. Hillary über alles.

There are times when Hillary Clinton's credentials as a Democrat are about as strong as Judas Iscariot's credentials as a Christian disciple.

[felix culpa]

OT but not utterly Scott Horton today—
Burke has harsh words:

I cannot conceive any existence under heaven (which, in the depths of its wisdom, tolerates all sorts of things), that is more truly odious and disgusting, than an impotent, helpless creature, without civil wisdom or military skill, without a consciousness of any other qualification for power but his servility to it, bloated with pride and arrogance, calling for battles which he is not to fight, contending for a violent dominion which he can never exercise, and satisfied to be himself mean and miserable, in order to render others contemptible and wretched.

Consider how perfectly this criticism matches the conduct of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney–it described them at the launch of the Iraq War, and it describes them just as well today.

at Harper’s, where he quotes an amazing Sullivan massive exhaustive mea culpa not unlike Cole’s

[Baschenis]

Lies that matter from HRC: We should go to war in Iraq because of 9-11. There was a connection between Saddam and Al Qaida. The surge is working. We gave Iraqis the gift of freedom. We are safer now. A time table for withdrawal would send the wrong message to the enemy.

[John Thullen]

Turb:

" ...... but if one's judgement really is so poor that such desperation compels them to tell such easily disproved lies, then I don't think they should be allowed anywhere near executive authority."

No offense, but I think we just lowered the bar here, not that I disagree. I'm continually taken aback that people, notably public figures, lie. But what really gets me is that so many are such lousy, careless liars.

Incompetent liars, if you will.

Is it a reflection on my character (don't answer this question, but if you must, be nice. In fact, fib, because I can't handle the truth) that I wonder to myself what will such an incompetent petty liar do when they are required by weighty circumstance to tell a great whopping lie, out of necessity?

I'm pretty sure George Washington meant it when he said "Father, I cannot tell a lie, ....". Or was it Mark Twain who meant it when he said George Washington meant it?

What most people don't know is that Washington's father thought to himself: "Well kid, I'd keep some liars on retainer, just in case."

Which his father did not think to himself. But if I repeat it enough times, it becomes better than truth; it becomes myth, of the ruralized sort, sure, but still.

Look, as Groucho said, "Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?" Before you answer, I dare anyone to find that quote anywhere in Groucho's body of work. And if you've seen Groucho's body, get to work and bury it because it's cluttering up the place.

Hey, but Groucho, like me, was "not crazy about reality, but it's still the only place to get a decent meal." Especially at the 49,328 joints around America which have a big signs outside yelling "Home of the World's Biggest and Most Famous Hamburger and If It's A Burrito You Want Listen To This Whopper and You Might Want To Step Out Back For Ten Extra Bucks and View The Moon Rocks and The Gigantic Man-Eating Vole."

See, I can watch stock market shouters all day on CNBC (Don't follow the herd [unless the herd is buying]; when the market's up, it's soaring; when it's down, it's not down, it's volatile), and open my junk mail (larger, you say?!), and check out the billboards (even larger!) and the magazines ads (now we're talking!) and the used-car want-ads (runs good, and extremely large) and the job listings (sling hash! competitive pay, large benefits!), and decide that America gives us the freedom to seek large truths but in the meantime we're carried along in the smegma wake of the bolus of accumulated minute-by-minute white lies (maybe half black, which, for some reason to some people, seem worse), little white lies, packs of little white lies, exaggerations, play-downs, half-truths, sleight-of-hands, two-for-ones, introductory offers, winks, fibs, petty prevarications, simulations, bouncing balls, luscious beauties draped over candy-apple red sheet metal on wheels, donald trumped-ups, flim, flam, clap, trap, hogwash, jiggery-pokery, legal fiction, pious fiction, reality shows, fish stories, frequent-flier miles, spin, imitations, intimations, imposters, whitewashes, tampering, juggling, gloss, gild, bunk, polish, false fronts, varnish, fudge, deodorants, loopholes, unmentionables, camouflage, silicon decollatage, overstatements, understatements, no comments, slants, twists, perspectives, artificial coloring, lighting, and relative-to-whats .....

..... that it's too late to stop now because the entire enterprise would collapse and sink to the bottom like a shark that stops feeding.

If you don't believe me, read the small print. If you can find it, because every time Congress mandates the truthy details be told in small print about products, all hell breaks loose among the folks who spend a lot of time making sure the small print doesn't make it into large print.

Bill Clinton lied with his eyes while his hands were busy working overtime, and a good thing, too, because it was a good example for religious leaders and other politicians, who pay a lot of money for discretion, only to find out their high-priced hookers lied to them about their attractiveness but couldn't find a lie with both hands when the publishers called.

Walter Mondale told the truth (if elected, I will raise your taxes) in 1984 and look what happened to him. He lost to a sincere "B" liar, who thought the truth was something Huntz Hall of the Bowery Boys could put to good use, if he could only believe in the black welfare mother's shiny cadillac on the hill.

George Bush Sr., on the subject of taxes, lied and got elected, and then told the truth and was punished by his fellow truth-tellers who actually believed their own lies.

George Jr., on the subject of taxes, is completely sincere (sincerity being his most grating trait) about not raising them. Even over his own dead body, which he really doesn't mean. He meant over other people's dead bodies.

But what about his waterboarded body, I ask you? I'll bet the truth would come out then. That and the location of every al Qaeda operative in the universe, if you can believe anything anyone says under waterboarding, and if you believe THAT, then DaveC. has some information we all need, I lied. So did he.

The magician Teller, of Penn and Teller, is quoted in a New Yorker article recently (I thought he was mute; what gives?):

"There's a moment in your life when you realize the difference between illusion and reality and that you're being lied to."

"Santa Claus. The Easter Bunny. After my mother told me that there was no Santa Claus, I made up an entirely ficticious girl in my classroom and told my mother stories about HER."

"Then I told my mother, 'You know what --she isn't real.'"

"If you're sufficiently preoccupied with the power of a lie, a falsehood, an illusion,, you remain interested in magic tricks."

Which is why his high school guidance counselor and his mother agreed that he should play Vegas where, for all I know, he saws that same ficticious girl in half five nights and a matinee a week.

"Parables are never lies because they describe events which never happened."

George Bernard Shaw

Which is a good thing, considering my commenting history.

Statistics, on the other hand, .........

And, another thing, a good liar can look you right in the eyes and go for it, but truth-tellers sidle up to the truth, eyes averted, in the form of poetry, or painting, and other metaphorical medium.

Explain that to me.

[John Thullen]

"media", I confess, not "medium".

[Baschenis]

She is running for president on the idea that she has superior experience. Padding her resume shows poor judgment and calls into question the rationale for her candidacy. When you apply for a job and you get caught lying on your resume, you would normally be disqualified for the job.

[Jesurgislac]

John Thullen makes everything better. And that, thank the Thullen, is the last thing I'm going to say in this thread.

I return to my previous state of sitting on my hands hoping that people are smarter than they seem on the Internet.

Which, actually, is an appropriate Message For Our Times, I think.

[felix culpa]

Monsieur Thullen, mon ami, would that not be “medium rare”?
(‘Referencing’ your unusual perpicacity, nay, perspicuity.)?

[Slartibartfast]

I return to my previous state of sitting on my hands hoping that people are smarter than they seem on the Internet.

Oh, me too!

[felix culpa]

Thullen for Vice President, if Richardson doesn’t bite.
Imagine a Veep who not only has wits, but knows how to use them.

[ral]

From the WikiPedia:

Misattributed

* Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?

In the movie Duck Soup this line is spoken by Chico Marx, who is dressed up as Groucho.

It takes all the mystery out of life.

[ral]

(aack -- it fooled me. Wikiquote)

[Melinda]

I don't think it's so much the criticism of the one quote that's sexist, but rather the context. It's complicated somewhat by Clinton-hating but when I see people launching attacks at Hillary Clinton I tend to think that the reason there's especial antagonism (and there is) there is in large part because she's a woman. It does make me uncomfortable; it also makes me somewhat more likely to support her, for the little that's worth. The "HAR HAR HAR GOTCHA HAR HAR HAR" tone of the critics is disturbing, to say the least. There's some personal animosity in there aside from any question of whether or not she's a suitable candidate and I find it pretty uncomfortable and largely inappropriate from people who identify as Democrats or progressives.

[redwood]

I strongly support Obama, hilzoy, but I am quite confident that Hillary can “grasp military affairs.” Like, McCain, she doesn’t see the biggest picture.

here’s the anti-intellectual bumper sticker way I see the three candidates:

McCain=gunboat diplomacy.

Clinton=gunboat diplomacy + a kind of self-righteous indignation as to the ways in which other people organize their societies and negotiate their internal relations, (one typically articulated in the context of Human Rights concerns (or not really truly concerns, just sentiments intended to help us feel good about ourselves, kinda like what you did in saying if you think we got it bad, look at Zimbabwe.

But serious.)).

Obama=Respect other nations as sovereign equals and stop lording our security and economic libertarian agendas over other nations, for it will only backfire. (Is backfiring). And besides, it’s not Christian of us to do so.

The proof of this interpretation would be on whether to move sovereign debt issues into a public law context or leave them as matters of private law, strictly contractual disputes between the lenders and debtors.

I predict that the Clinton/McCain ticket would stop short of passing UN laws that would create public forums within which sovereign debt problems can be sorted out.

Obama would pass it, and in doing so (I believe) we would create a vehicle with which the world could achieve a greater measure of international security for years to come, at least to the extent that these debt issues contribute to armed conflicts and wars, such as the way in which Iraq’s debt to Kuwait touched off this whole mess.

[wonkie]

Melinda, I respectfully disagree. i think that the reason some HRC supporters interpete attacks on her as being sexist is that those supporters identify with her and take the attacks, at least subconsciously , as attacks on themsleves or attacks on Everywoman. The Har Har Har is not nice ( and I'm guilty of it) but, agains the only reasn to react by deciding to support HRC is is the HAr Har Har is taken as aimed at you (or all women) which it isn't.

I deeply dislike HRC. I am a fifty-five year old Democrat, activist since elemntary school, a supporter of the party's chsen candidate in every elelction. In 04 I went from supporting Dean to Clark to Kerry. I I am not opposed to HRC because of her gender.

1. The decsion to support the war was stupid and immoral. I don't want the standard bearer of our party to be someone capable of that level of bad judgement when we have a candidat who didn't make that mistake,.

2. She has a pattern of R-lite votes on defense or rights issues. She has no pattern of fighting for our liberal values. Obama does: one example is the endorsement he got from the Gitmo lawyers for being the Senator who fought the hardest to restore habeas corpus

3. Her campaign isn't organized around a positive message or agenda, other than health care. he initial theme was "I'm ineveitable", then "I'm ready" The majority of her maessaging has been attacks, not positive staements of what she stands for. Obama does have a positive theme that underlies all of his ideas and proposals: stop the divide and conquer politrics of the right and unite to take back the governemtn This is misconstrued as a refusal to fight the right but the track record shows otherwise. Obama is more of a fighter than Clinton, he just does with less rancor.

4. Her campaign has been characterized by incompetence. I don't want the standard bearer of our party to be a person doesn't think ahead, depends on incompetent advisors, and raisese issue which highlight her own weaknesses. Obama has run a much smarter campaign.

5. She doesn't support the 50 state policy. Instead she supports the old big state strategy that Gore and Kerry used. that means that not only will she more than likely loses this elelction, but she will not be an effective leader of the party even if she does win. We are taking a giant step backward if we nominate her. Obama on the other hand has built on Dean's leadership and is extending and stregnthening the party.

As for why I get angry--moxtly a reactionn to her campaign's relaentless rudenes to her own constituents. it's a karl Rove technique to shit on people and then tell them that they ahve no justification for getting mad. Republicans did that to Democrfats for years. Now the HRC campaign do it to Obama supporters

But another aspect of my anger is frustration that such a out=of-date minially comnpetent politician might be foisted on the party when we could do so much better. I would like the first female cadidate for the PResidency to be a GOOD Deomcrat.

I think that the assumption that criticsms of her are inately sexist is the kind of thinking that comes from identity politics.

[Adam]

I must confess that I don't fully understand why it is that criticizing Clinton here is purportedly sexist. Is the "because she's a woman" complaint that skepticism of her claim is influenced by a supposition that... women are less likely to be brave in combat? Less likely to be in combat? I don't understand what the objectionable leap of logic is supposed to be.

I also don't see how that's even relevant. This isn't analogous to the Keyboard Commando Brigade's general assumption that any story questioning Administration policy that's allegedly sourced from the military must be false. If Clinton is making a claim that's not doubtful but rather entirely controverted by plain video evidence, what inference is being complained about?

[baschenis]

Blatant, easily disproved lying, misleading, disinformation-- these are now standard political tactics. When confronted with the truth, the technique requires adamant, repeated insistence on the lie, no matter how ridiculous it is. This technique, used by Reagan and perfected by Rove and Bush on Iraq, is made possible by the tendency of the media to report both sides of a question in a supposedly balanced way. The result is that in our politics there is no truth, only opinion. Politicians have a certain kind of power if they can create their own reality. If Hillary follows this trend she will stick to her hail of bullets story.

[byrningman]

This technique, used by Reagan and perfected by Rove and Bush on Iraq, is made possible by the tendency of the media to report both sides of a question in a supposedly balanced way.

Yeah I think that's true. Call Campaign B for rebuttal of story fed by Campaign A - lazy journalist's job is done!

[Dave]

Imagine what would happen when she tried to board Marine One.

[hilzoy]

I think the idea is that we all just pile on when it's Hillary Clinton in a way that we wouldn't if it were a guy.

Personally, I think that's false. I will support Clinton in the fall if she's the nominee, without hesitation. But I think she is acting in a profoundly destructive way right now. It has been clear since Wisconsin that he won't win unless Obama somehow implodes. At that point, or at latest after TX/PA, she should have left the race. (The fact that she won PA and the TX primary is irrelevant; she didn't win them by anything like enough to have a realistic shot at the nomination.)

Instead, she has been pursuing her kitchen sink strategy, which I think is selfish and destructive to the party. I mean: I really can't express how vile I think it is for one Democrat to challenge another's fitness to be President, in any case in which it's not clearly true. (I mean, if one of my cats were running for President, fine. Obama, not fine.)

Sexism has precisely nothing to do with this.

I should also say: it's one reason I find it odd when people say: oh, you are engaged in negative campaigning. I am not the one impugning anyone's fitness to serve. Actually, I went out of my way to say: hey, she has experience, etc., etc. Hillary Clinton is being profoundly destructive to the party, and I don't see why the rest of us should be expected to sit around and not criticize her as she does so.

At least I think that people who want to judge everything bloggers do by how much it helps or hurts the Democratic party should be applying that same test to actual Democratic politicians.

[hilzoy]

2nd paraq., above: "he won't win" = "she won't win".

[John Cole]

By cooperating with the usual suspects while they smear Hillary, you are making them harder to ignore when, inevitably, they turn their guns on Obama.

By all means, let us never call a Democrat who is lying a liar. Then the terrorists win. And when we all adhere to this absurd notion of pretending that party affiliation is all that matters, we can start a new group website. I propose we call it Red State or the Corner.

Seriously, I had enough of that mentality when I was a Republican the last few years. If Hillary is lying, she is lying, and it emboldens no one to call her a liar.

[JakeB]

Considering cats are basically sadistic killing machines, I figure they would be Libertarians, not Democrats.

More seriously, although it's probably of even less value, I find the notion that Sen. Clinton is getting hassled for this lie MORE than she would if she was one of the boys to be peculiar. The contempt I feel for Sen. Clinton with respect to this instance is no different in nature than that I feel for, for instance, Micah Wright. Claiming courage and experience of warfare that you don't actually have is monstrously vulgar. That's regardless of the sex of the speaker.

[DrBigJ]

Unfortunately, the Clinton way is the Bush way -- just keep repeating a storyline (even false) and (the Stupid) people of America will believe it. Sorry - it is as simple as that. When the Clintons started they had to learn how to defend against the Republican machine. Now they are that machine.

[JanieM]

"the fact that she won PA..."

??

[Gary Farber]

I think it's clear, though perhaps not completely obvious, that Hilzoy had a braino, as we all do at times, when she wrote "won PA and the TX primary," and meant "OH and the TX primary," JanieM.

[JanieM]

Yeah, Gary, I should have put a smiley face or something with my question marks. I grew up in Ohio, 10 or so miles from Pennsylvania, where the radio stations always served "northeastern Ohio and northwestern Pennsylvania"... so I just got a smile out of it.

I will put "braino" down as my new word of the day. :)

[skippy]

Jesurlgiac has always been a commenter who I look forward to seeing on a variety of site, but her posts here just cement the truth of the ongoing Hillary campaign embrace of Rovian tactics.

Hillary claims X. *Video* shows not-X.

Only in the Bush/Rove world is that an occasion to simply insist all the more strongly on the truth of X.

I'll vote for her in November if I need to, but to echo another commenter above, this is why I am not a Democrat. "Half-hearted" is an overstatement of my enthusiasm for Hillary.

[ThatLeftTurnInABQ]

Those who are defending Hillary and feeling that this is another example of a pileon may be missing another part of the context here.

As a Democrat, when I criticize Hillary for lying it is because I have higher expectations, which I think she should be able to meet. Given recent past history, I expect a Democrat to be less truth-challenged than say a randomly selected Bush admin. official (who should be presumed to be lying until proven otherwise). Especially if that Democrat is bidding to be the leader of our party and our nation.

The pileon comes in part from partisan sniping from the right, but some component of it is coming from people like me who think that Hillary is capable of being better than this, and are deeply disappointed when she falls short of our reasonable expectations. If you tar the latter with guilt by association with the former then you are missing the point.

If we don't hold the leaders from our own party to a higher standard (than those in the other party are held to), then how will our political dialog ever improve, and how can we claim the moral high ground vs. the Republicans? The alternative is a relentless race to the bottom driven by blind party loyalty*, a danger which John Cole has testified against eloquently and often.

People in a democracy get the quality of government they deserve. That applies to party leadership as much as it does to the government, in fact more so because at the party level each individual vote and each individual voice counts for roughly twice as much. We have to be better than the GOP on this, even if it costs us something. To do otherwise would be to follow them down the same path.

*note: yes, I know perfectly well that Democrats in the past have not been as unified as the GOP or inclined to close ranks and suppress internal criticism [insert Will Rogers quote here]. That fails to recognize that internally the Democratic party is composed of at least two major blocks (the DLC wing and the Progressive wing) each of which behaves more like a distinct party and within each block they do tend to suppress dissent and close ranks.

Much of the rancor between Obama and Clinton supporters this year comes from it being a rare year when the DLC wing is not winning, and the Progressive wing is not being relegated to the role of water carrier (c.f. 1980, 1984, 1992, 2004). The DLC wing is not accustomed from long practice to playing the role of loyal opposition within the Democratic party, nor are the Progressives accustomed to setting the agenda and dictating the rules for intraparty criticism.

The clumsiness of this primary battle is in part a reflection of the fact that the usual players are not sitting in their accustomed seats, and they haven't adjusted to this change yet. Also, the DLC wing is scared silly of losing control over what they consider to be "their party" - comparisons with the Huckenfreude freak out in the GOP when it looked like the evangelicals might actually take over the party are instructive.

[ThatLeftTurnInABQ]

Jesurlgiac has always been a commenter who I look forward to seeing

I'd like to echo this sentiment, not because I agree with Jes, but precisely because I so often disagree. People who don't agree with me and who can engage in a civil dialog are the most valuable contributors to a site from my point of view. Echo chambers can be fun but are intellectually destructive if indulged in too often.

[Mike Schilling]

James Carville on Bill Richardson's endorsement of Obama:

"Mr. Richardson’s endorsement came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic."

I have searched my soul and find no taint of sexism in my disgust with that.

["Q" the Enchanter]

Really? NewsBusters?

Really?

[Wonder Wall]

It's amusing that this conversation is happening at all, as if women can't possibly have a negative view of Clinton simply because we share similar reproductive organs.

I'm a woman. Have been for the 22 years that I've been alive (at least to the best of my knowledge, but since I don't have any obvious scarring that my husband has alerted me to, I'm going to assume that I've always been female). While I'd love to see a woman taking on the role of president, I'm aware that it will have to be someone who has always wanted the position and thus has chosen their paths in life carefully. Someone who won't tell bald-faced lies and think that they're going to just dance it past the public without someone eventually noticing.

HRC is NOT that candidate.

She has obviously lied to not only the press but the American public in general. I don't think that this qualifies her as leader by any means, especially after we've spent the better part of a rather horrific decade dealing with a backwoods hick who seems to think that we're all as much of an idiot as he is.

Am I sexist because of this? No, I'd like to think I'm anything but. It just so happens that HRC isn't the kind of person that I want to see running this country. I'm all for women's rights and so on. And no, I'm not a Democrat, before you ask - I prefer to not have any political affiliations.

Do I have my problems with Obama and McCain? Sure, I do. None of them are problems with the fact that Obama's mixed (or black, or however you'd like to think of him), or that McCain's white, or that either one of them is male. My issues with candidates revolve completely around what they say and do, and whether or not their actions reflect their claims.

I'm not going to be voting for HRC. Not because I don't like Democrats (I tend to like them better than Republicans at the moment) or because I don't like women (that would be.. Well, stupid). I'm not going to be voting for her because she blatantly LIED and expected nobody to notice because if they dared to, it would be considered sexist.

Well, someone noticed.

[Jeff]

Let me put it this way: McCain "touring" Baghdad is, if only slightly, more true than Clinton arriving "running with her head down". We can't give a free pass to the Clinton's statements and not to the President's plastic turkey, or to other Republican visits Iraq.

Saying that we hold Clinton to the same standards as Republicans (which is pretty thin these days) is hardly sexist; putting her above such standards is.

[Carnival of Politics]

An exaggeration of strife intended to improve her percieved experience handling crises.

Please consider submitting this account to the Carnival of Politics, a weekly blog magazine about politcs, at www.carnivalofpolitcs.com/submit.

[Jay Jerome]

re this: "I'm a woman. Have been for the 22 years that I've been alive…" plus this: "I'm aware that it will have to be someone who has always wanted the position and thus has chosen their paths in life carefully. Someone who won't tell bald-faced lies.."

All politicians lie, one way or another (Obama: I wasn't at any of Wright's incendiary sermons, except for the ones I was at; I didn't know Rezko was a crook, except for the time I knew he was a crook but kept hanging with him anyway).

It's this kind of naïveté that suggests we raise the voting age in presidential elections to 30 years.

[skippy]

Oh please.

This particular lie concerns *the entire reason Hillary claims we should vote for her*.

If Obama's central campaign focus was that he goes to a better church than Hillary, or that never in his life as he once interacted with someone who turns out to have been a bit corrupt, you'd have a point.

As it stands, you don't. Though Karl Rove would be proud.

[KCinDC]

Perhaps we should just exclude from voting those who can't understand the difference between saying you weren't at a particular sermon and saying you were never at any sermon that someone somewhere might have taken offense at something in.

[OCSteve]

Jes: Or does it really matter that everyone should pile on and mock at the notion that a mere woman could possibly have ever been under fire? (Which is a fairly standard reaction, Ginmar has written, among male bloggers who have not themselves been in the military: their notion of courage is such that they can't stand the idea that a woman could have experienced something they themselves never have.)

See Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester, 23 years old, female, first female since WWII to receive the Silver Star.

See Spc. Monica Lin Brown, female, 19 years old, and the second woman since WWII to receive it. I doubt that the guys she saved would “pile on”.

I’m not sure what you mean about Ginmar and other male bloggers – but I have not seen anyone mock these two. If you have, please point me in the right direction and I shall go mock them mercilessly.

But not all lies are equally major … These are lies that matter. … Does it matter if it didn't happen … Do you really think that it matters so much that if Clinton did actually tell a deliberate lie … even if Clinton lied completely about ever having been under fire on Bosnia, it's not something that matters. …

Jes – this is the first time I have seen you quite so flexible on this matter…

[dutchmarbel]

I return to my previous state of sitting on my hands hoping that people are smarter than they seem on the Internet.

I try to do the same, but it is hard at times. I agree with everything you've said on this thread so far (ah, see, it DOES happen) and have tried to say the same thing but it just doesn't seem to come through, people just don't seem to understand or see what you (and in previous threads I) mean.

[Jay Jerome]

skippy: "This particular lie concerns *the entire reason Hillary claims we should vote for her*."

Which 'lie' are your talking about, skippy? The twelve pound bass that was really a six pound flounder?

[Jay Jerome]

john-in-nashville: “Would the same reasoning apply to a Democratic candidate suggesting that John McCain can cross the Commander-in-Chief threshold, whatever that means, but Barack Obama cannot?”

Reasoning or no reasoning, it’s the view held by a majority of Americans, who have more confidence in McCain and Hillary to be Commander-in-Chief: in all the recent polls Obama trails them both in that category.

In fact, as of a few minutes ago, as reflected in the Rasmussen Reports Daily Presidential Tracking Poll, Clinton now holds a slight advantage nationally over Obama 45% to 44% -- reflecting a steady drop in his national support over the past weeks.

And in upcoming primaries, she’s kicking his butt. In West Virginia she’s ahead 55% to 27%, in Pennsylvania she’s ahead by double digits (some polls showing her with a 19% lead).

Go girl, go.

“There are times when Hillary Clinton's credentials as a Democrat are about as strong as Judas Iscariot's credentials as a Christian disciple.”

Does Michele Obama get an Iscariot credential too… since she’s refused to promise to support Hillary if she’s the nominee.

And by the way, as ‘far as you know’ Judas Iscariot was a good guy, just following divine instructions.

[felix culpa]

WW, a small correction: "Originating in Orange, New Jersey, the Bush family in the 20th century became an accomplished political family in the United States, including across three generations a U.S. Senator, two Governors, one Vice President and two Presidents. Many other members have been successful bankers and businessmen. "from">http://snipurl.com/22fpw">from Wikipedia. And grandaddy G.H. Walker’s bank; “On October 20, 1942, pursuant to the Trading with the Enemy Act, the United States seized all of the shares of the Union Banking Corporation”—(Wikipedia)">http://snipurl.com/22fqa">(Wikipedia) (for trying to conceal safekeeping Nazi gold).
Backwoods is not his home town.
But of course we knew it was just An Act.

[Jay Jerome]

"Jes: Or does it really matter that everyone should pile on and mock at the notion that a mere woman could possibly have ever been under fire?"

Under fire or not, she wasn't at a picnic on the tarmac -- she was in a dangerous place at a dangerous time:

Published on 1996-03-26, Page A1, The Kansas City Star RON FOURNIER The Associated Press
MARKOVICI, Bosnia-Herzegovina - Protected by sharpshooters, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton swooped into a military zone by helicopter Monday to deliver a personal ``thank you, thank you, thank you'' to U.S. troops. ``They're making a difference,'' she said of the 18,500 Americans working as peacekeepers in Bosnia.
Clinton became the first presidential spouse since Eleanor Roosevelt to make such an extensive trip into what can be...

Sharpshooters? They weren't there as window dressing. And the narrow focus of the photo doesn't indicate what the situation was like there, on the ground.

And as far as the paragon of vereacity Sinbad is concerned, he's quoted in the article as describing the situation in Bosnia as "so tense. It was Crips and Bloods." But he's singing a different tune now, the Obama lullaby--

[OCSteve]

JJ: I assume then that you believe McCain’s recent trip was really dangerous?

[wonkie]

I feel like hardly anyone is getting the point.

just because HRC is a woman is no reason why Deomcrats or women in general should hold her to a lower standard than we would a man or a Republican. I can imagine the gales of laughter that the females on this thread if Bush claimed that he had been in danger and had to duck sniper fire when he deliverd the plastic turkey. It's a perversion of feminism.

The lie itself isn't the big deal. She could be remembering wrong. People often do. The ral problem is that she, who wants to be our standard bearer, set herself up for this through a series of mistakes that no competent campaign would have made.
1. Dissing a fellow Democrat as less competent thatn a Republican is not OK
2. making experience the Big Issue when she hardly has any is a dumb move
3. Being unprepared to give truthful examples of the experience is a dumb move.

Besides, so what if there were anti-sniper soldiers there? She claiming diplomatic experience and illustrating it with a war story. the war story turns out to be untrue and she can't even attempt to back the diplomacy claim up with any facts.

BTW I think everyone realizes the most of the remaining states favor HRC. Go to Open Left and there are charts there that will show you the likely delegate totals. I think the delegate totals for Obama are high and the ones for Clinton are low but it doesn't matter: she ins't going to pass him without the supers.

Primary elections don't mean shit in terms of the general election. The data really worth examining is the state by stae general election polls.

[Wonder Wall]

Re: "It's this kind of naïveté that suggests we raise the voting age in presidential elections to 30 years."

Jay - I would have to be an absolute moron to believe that there's a politician alive that hasn't, at one point or another (much less all the time), lied to anyone - be it their voters, their parties, or their families. My point is, however, that when someone makes an obvious "mistake" such as this (though I hardly believe it's a mistake; she went overboard and believed that it would be bought), they should own up to it. Did she go? Nobody's contesting that. But she doesn't have to beatify herself. If people want to vote for her, they WILL. Yes, they've all lied about things here and there but this is just another example of when someone has said something, was caught, and will never apologize for their lies. This article could have been about any of the candidates and my reaction would have been the same.

Thank you so much for twisting my words to turn me into a mockable juvenile. You've done well to represent the portion of the population that has never come into contact with a mature individual under the age of 30. Please don't throw me in with the "underage and stupid" group when I've done nothing to deserve that nametag.

[JakeB]

Wonder Wall--
I don't know how much you've been around here before, but it would be fair to say that there's more than one person who considers Jay Jerome to be an intolerably pompous troll. So don't worry about it.

[Josh E.]

The other day I was on the subway and a couple young black guys got into an argument and almost started fighting. I'm going to follow the Jay Jerome standard and start telling people I was in Watts in mid-August of 1965.

[ThatLeftTurnInABQ]

??Jerome writes:

It's this kind of naïveté that suggests we raise the voting age in presidential elections to 30 years.

Once again Jay shows his usual deft concern for grass roots party building efforts, by expressing his support for a demographic group which skews heavily in favor of the Democrats right now. With more Democrats like Jay, we are sure to overtake the GOP as the preferred party of the next generation which will have an increasing influence over future elections in 2012 and beyond.

/sarcasm

Wonder Wall: welcome. Don't take it personally. Being attacked by Jay if you are someone who prefers Obama over Hillary is becoming something of a badge of honor on this site. Sort of like dodging sniper fire while landing at an airport...

[ThatLeftTurnInABQ]

I must have blown it on the html tags there. The first paragraph in my previous comment is a quote from Jay's 4:46pm comment:

It's this kind of naivete that suggests we raise the voting age in presidential elections to 30 years.

[Jay Jerome]

OCSteve: "JJ: I assume then that you believe McCain’s recent trip was really dangerous?"

The only thing that's dangerous, OCSteve, is when he opens his mouth... But even when he puts his foot in it, I tend to think of him 'like an old uncle who says things I don't always agree with,' and concentrate on his more admirable beliefs and statements, like:

"I am fully prepared to be commander in chief... I don't need on-the-job training."

See, succinct, and to the point. As opposed to Orator Obama (who needs twenty words to express what he could say in ten):

"The job of the commander in chief is to listen to the best counsel available and to listen even to people you don't agree with and then ultimately you make the final decision and you take responsibility for those actions."

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

[Gary Farber]

For a while I thought Jay hated Obama because he loved Clinton.

Nowadays I'm pretty much going with the theory it's the other way around.

[magistra]

It's this kind of naïveté that suggests we raise the voting age in presidential elections to 30 years.

It's been fascinating (in a bizarre way) to watch the Baby Boomer candidates and their supporters in this election suddenly discovering how experience is what really counts and young people are so stupid and complaining about why young people don't respect their elders and wait their turn anymore. It's the final confirmation that that generation has now definitely turned into their parents.

magistra (born 1965 and so not a Boomer)

[Phil]

Say, how many words are missing where the ellipsis appears in Jay's McCain quote?

[Wonder Wall]

Thanks for the welcomes. I've been lurking for a little while but tended not to pay attention to the comments until this post. Bad, bad me, I know.

[Original Lee]

Hilzoy and TLTIABQ, I will have to say your comments on this thread are making me stop to check whether or not you're quoting Thurber or White from way back when. Stylistically and logically, you two totally rock.

Jes, I understand your frustration with the anti-Hillary pile-ons. Some of the stuff out there requires a hazmat suit to read. But I think that this time, she and her campaign staff messed up all on their own. Respectfully, I think it's not misogynist or antifeminist to point it out. I think it would be MORE misogynist or antifeminist to brush it off, because then I would be saying that she can't stand up to the same kind of scrutiny the men in the campaign are getting, or that I couldn't possibly expect her to exceed a standard of behavior exhibited by the current Administration (a standard generally held to be asbysmal on this blog). In this case, I don't think it's antifeminist at all to expect her to be better than the Smirkerator and to express disappointment when she appears to fall short. Hilzoy has been very restrained in her criticism, but obviously YMMV.

[Anarch]

And by the way, as ‘far as you know’ Judas Iscariot was a good guy, just following divine instructions.

You've never seen Jesus Christ Superstar, I take it.

[Jeff]

Reasoning or no reasoning, it’s the view held by a majority of Americans, who have more confidence in McCain and Hillary to be Commander-in-Chief: in all the recent polls Obama trails them both in that category.

A lot of Americans might prefer McCain over Clinton on some issues, but you won't hear Obama talking about them. Clinton is a lying cheating a-hole. I will vote for her, but it will leave a VERY sour feeling in my stomach.

There's one thing Obama has in excess that Clinton doesn't know the meaning of: class.

Go girl, go.

Far, far away!