Now, you remember this, because George did work in that '92 campaign, and George and I actually were against NAFTA. I'm talking about him in his previous life, before he was an objective journalist and didn't have opinions about such matters.
(LAUGHTER)
STEPHANOPOULOS: [inaudible] opinion.
CLINTON: Yes, but we were in meetings together where we said, look, we think there's going to be a lot of downsides, and we're not really thinking through that.
That's not what happened. Stephanopoulos talked about those meetings on his show two months ago. Here's what he had to say on March 23, 2008:
JAY CARNEY ("TIME"): I think there's a lot of creative and revisionist history happening on people's views of NAFTA. At the time NAFTA was a huge and important push that President Clinton made in his first term. The administration was behind it. There's no indication that the First Lady wasn't behind it. And when he secured it, it was considered a success, that had righted his presidency after a very difficult opening several months in its first year. So I think Senator Clinton has a real problem here arguing that she was against it.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (ABC NEWS): It is true, though. I was in some of the meetings. It is true, that at the time, she was pushing health care. And she didn't appreciate the fact that NAFTA was getting a lot more time on the schedule.
And here's the video of the same thing:
So, Stephanopoulous says that Hillary expressed concern that all the attention to NAFTA was taking attention away from her health care proposal. She did not oppose NAFTA because she thought "there's going to be a lot of downsides, and we're not really thinking through that." She simply thought NAFTA was competing with her own legislative priorities. So, again, Hillary's memory of an event conflicts with what really happened.
Of course, in 2000, Hillary opposed her gas tax plan too. (In all fairness, it's John McCain's gas tax plan. Hillary simply stole it.) Does she really think that, were she to steal the nomination, the GOP wouldn't have a field with "Hillary is a flip-flopping liar" ads in the fall? On issue after issue, from guns to NAFTA to this gas tax, Hillary shifts her position with each new poll, hoping voters won't notice that all of her previous positions contradict her current one. People aren't stupid. They're going to figure out that Hillary appears to lie about everything. I mean, she's got enough baggage already. Half the public already hates her, then she's going to have to deal with the Republicans bringing up Monica and all of Hillary's own scandals, like Whitewater and the cattle futures. And now she's branding herself a serial liar. This isn't the definition of electable. It's the definition of a train wreck.
Here is President Clinton at a press conference in 2000 explaining that a gas tax holiday would not pass the savings to the consumer:
Q. Mr. President, in light of the fact that OPEC has decided to increase production, do you see it as a mistake for the Senate to proceed with a bill that would suspend the gas tax? And if it reached your desk, would you veto it?
A. Well, I don’t expect it to reach my desk because there seems to be bipartisan opposition to it in the House, including among the leadership. But the problem I have with it, apart from what it might do to the Highway Trust Fund and the spending obligations that have already been incurred by the acts of Congress, the budgets, is that I’m not sure that the savings would be passed along to the consumers in addition to that. So I think there are a lot of questions about it. But I don’t expect it to pass.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has come out strongly against the idea of a gas tax holiday, versions of which are being proposed by Sens. Clinton and McCain:
"First of all, there's no reason to believe that any moratorium on the gas tax will be passed onto the consumer, first and foremost. This has not been the history, of a lowered gas tax being passed onto the consumer. Second of all, it would defeat everything we've been trying to do to lower the cost of oil. ... There are other remedies that are much better than that, and again, have a direct impact on the problem that we're trying to solve. I think the biggest answer to our challenges is to invest in renewable energy resources and to do it now."
Hillary now says that she knows nothing of her husband's pardon. That's a lie, and one of the more egregious ones coming from Hillary of late, and that's saying something. The case of the two terrorists Bill pardoned is from New York. It was a huge controversy right when Hillary was running to be the Senator from NY. We're to believe that the Clinton political people didn't bother telling Hillary that they were thinking of pardoning a pair of terrorists from the state she was trying to represent as a Senator? Right. She's lying, again.
Putting Hillary's serial lies aside for a moment, what's most troubling about this story is that Hillary now knows that her top surrogate, the man who will be her co-president, is soft on terrorists, and Hillary doesn't seem to care. I mean, when a top Obama surrogate called Hillary a "monster," Hillary went crazy and the Obama surrogate was forced to resign. But now Hillary's top surrogate embraces actual monsters, and sets them free while America is at war against terrorists, and Hillary shrugs and confesses ignorance (not exactly the answer of someone who's "fully vetted"). She's not ignorant now. Now she knows the story. So why hasn't she done anything about it? Imagine had Obama kept his top surrogate after it was revealed that the surrogate freed two cop-killing terrorists - oh I'm sorry, two terrorists who were members of an organization that killed two cops and bombed numerous federal buildings. Oh the fun Hillary (and the media) would have with that story. And just imagine the fun the Republicans will have in the fall, branding us as the party that has more sympathy with cop-killing terrorists than with the widows of the cops they killed (you know the GOP will get those women in TV ads that will be the war on terror version of Willy Horton). It's time that Hillary showed Democrats, and all of America, that she isn't soft on crime, soft on terrorism, soft on cop-killers. Because as it stands, her indifference to the death of two police officers, and the bombing of US federal buildings, while America is at war is writing the Republicans' own script for their attack ads in the fall.
What's worse, Hillary had no problem criticizing Bill's offer to pardon even more terrorists in 1999 (what is it with him?), but now when it comes to people who kill cops and bomb federal buildings, Hillary is mum about pardoning their members:
Although Hillary Clinton publicly disputed her husband's offer of clemency to Puerto Rican nationalists in 1999 because they had not sufficiently renounced violence, she is not known to have objected to his freeing of Rosenberg and Evans in 2001.
Doesn't look good. And not sounding awfully vetted.
It's the mathematical equivalent of sniper fire. Hillary's campaign is today alleging that they overtook Obama in the popular vote last night! Of course, it isn't true, but hey, I guess it depends on what the definition of truth is. Even though Hillary is still half a million votes behind Obama, including primaries and caucuses, her campaign is of course now adding in the votes from Florida and Michigan - which were disqualified by the DNC. So, yes, if you add imaginary votes to the count then Hillary does take the lead in imaginary-land (hey, I'm more than happy to make her our party's imaginary nominee). What was David Geffen's now infamous line about the Clintons that got him into so much trouble with Hillary?
Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it’s troubling.
As an aside, anybody else notice how quickly Hillary is willing to chuck Iowa and New Hampshire overboard? The reason Florida and Michigan got into trouble is because they moved their primaries and caucuses too far up, threatening Iowa's and New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation status. Hillary was all for Iowa and NH having that status when she wanted their votes. Now, not so much. Oh, that's the truth thing again. Sorry, I forgot. (Oh, and they also lied here, claiming that ABC validated their wacky math - ABC didn't, and called them on it.)
Did anyone else catch what Hillary said last night during the debate about her Bosnia sniper-fire fiasco? Here's ABC's transcript:
HILLARY: On a couple of occasions in the last weeks, I just said some things that weren't in keeping with what I knew to be the case and what I had written about in my book.
She's now saying that she said things that she knew at the time were not true. And to compound matters, she and her staff and her husband spent two weeks lying about the lie, trying to claim that she only said it one time (she said it four), she said it late at night and was therefore tired (she said it at 9am, the last time), they even sent surrogates out to claim that what she said was true (even though she now says she knew at the time that it wasn't true). So, if Hillary knew that what she said wasn't true, then she intentionally and knowingly coordinated a campaign to cover up her own lie for two whole weeks. And now, the best explanation she can give, is "I intentionally lied."
We had two very good men run for president in 2000 and 2004, but large segments of the electorate concluded that they did not really understand or relate to or frankly respect the truth, and I think that is an issue for voters.
Today, Hillary Clinton received the endorsement of another prominent Montana leader, Yellowstone County Commissioner Bill Kennedy.... Kennedy said Sen. Obama's remarks last week at a San Francisco fundraiser solidified his support for Sen. Clinton.
After a weekend spent making direct appeals to gun owners and church goers, Hillary Clinton said Sunday a query about the last time she fired a gun or attended church services "is not a relevant question in this debate” over Barack Obama’s recent comments on small town Americans.
“We can answer that some other time,” Clinton said at a press conference held in a working class neighborhood here.
In all fairness, maybe church was canceled because of sniper fire.
Former president Bill Clinton is the latest to hand out a juicy fib -- circling back to Bosnia to cram four falsehoods into 23 words: His wife, he said, "one time late at night when she was exhausted, misstated and immediately apologized for it, what happened to her in Bosnia in 1995."
Where to start? If his telling is accurate, it depends on what the definition of "one time," "late at night," and "immediately apologized" is. (And it was 1996, not 1995.)
"Hillary Clinton actually made the comments numerous times, including at an event in Iowa on Dec. 29, and an event on Feb. 29 and one time -- bright and early in the morning -- on March 17," ABC's Sarah Amos and Eloise Harper report.
"Sen. Clinton wasn't as quick with her apology as President Clinton may remember either. In fact, it took a week for her to eventually correct herself, first talking to the Philadelphia Inquirer editorial board on March 24 and again apologizing the next day in Greensboro, N.C."
Politifact.com gave Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's handling of the matter the dreaded "pants on fire" designation.
ABC's Jake Tapper counts up a total of eight different misstatements/exaggerations in his telling of the tale on Thursday.
AP is now on the story as well. This isn't good. It's also rather dumb. Bill Clinton has become a lightning rod for controversy. He's the last person the campaign should be using in public, for anything, let alone to push revisionist talking points that everyone knows aren't true. It's not clear who on the Clinton campaign came up with the bright idea to lie about Hillary's Bosnia lie, and claim that she only said it once, but it's not clear who's the bigger moron - the person who came up with the lie, or the person who agreed to say it.
And it's the same outright lie the Clinton campaign has been repeating over and over, which means it's a talking point lie. Here is what Bill Clinton claimed today:
"And, you know. I got tickled the other day. A lot of the way this whole campaign has been covered has amused me. But there was a lot of fulminating because Hillary, one time late at night when she was exhausted, misstated and immediately apologized for it, what happened to her in Bosnia in 1995. Did y'all see all that? Oh, they blew it up.
That's a lie. Hillary actually "misspoke" four times over four months. Then the campaign had their surrogates and press staff fan out in order to defend Hillary's lie as the truth. Now repeated members of the Clinton campaign have claimed that Hillary simply misspoke "once." It's a flat-out lie. They know it's a lie. But they seem to think that you're so stupid, you won't notice. Amazing. And what is he talking about "late at night"? Late at night? Uh, when was Hillary talking about Bosnia "late at night?" I mean, now we're not just lying, but getting into some real detailed lies. (Not to mention, so Bill is admitting that Hillary isn't really on her game "late at night." Does 3am count as "late at night"?)
Let's recap:
On December 29th, the New York Times reported that Clinton said "I was so honored to be able to travel around the world representing our country. You know, going to places that often times were, you know, not necessarily a place that a president could go. We used to say in the White House that if a place was too dangerous, too small or too poor, send the first lady. So, I had the time of my life. I was the first, you know, high- profile American to go into Bosnia after the peace accords were signed because we wanted to show that the United States was 100 percent behind the agreement. We wanted to make it clear to the Bosnians of all backgrounds. Plus we wanted to thank our American military and our allies for a great job. So, we landed in one of those corkscrew landings and ran out because they said there might be sniper fire. I don't remember anybody offering me tea on the tarmac. We got there and went to the base where our soldiers were and I went out to a lot of the forward operating bases to thank our young men and women in uniform and to thank the Europeans, including the Russians who were part of that effort."
Hillary repeated these claims at a rally on February 29th: "At the rally, she belittled the idea that Mr. Obama's 2002 speech 'at an antiwar rally' prepared him to serve as commander in chief. She said he was 'missing in action' on the recent Senate vote on Iran and as chairman of a subcommittee responsible for NATO policy in Afghanistan. Contrasting that with her own experience, she evoked foreign battlefields, recalling a trip to Bosnia as first lady, when the welcoming ceremony 'had to be moved inside because of sniper fire.' She said she had traveled to more than 80 countries and was 'on the front lines' as the United States made peace in Bosnia and Northern Ireland and helped save refugees from ethnic cleansing in Kosovo."
In a speech on March 17th, Hillary said, in prepared remarks: "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. But it was a moment of great pride for me to visit our troops, not only in our main base as Tuzla, but also at two outposts where they were serving in so many capacities to deactivate and remove landmines, to hunt and seek out those who had not complied with the Dayton Accords and put down their arms, and to build relationships with the people that might lead to a peace for them and their children."
AP also reported that right after her speech, Clinton reaffirmed the account of running from the plane to the cars when she was asked about it during a news conference. She said was moved into the cockpit of the C-17 cargo plane as they were flying into Tuzla Air Base. 'Everyone else was told to sit on their bulletproof vests,' Clinton said. 'And we came in, in an evasive maneuver. ... There was no greeting ceremony, and we basically were told to run to our cars. Now, that is what happened.'"
I don't mean to nitpick, but let's not just outright lie about this entire affair and then pretend it's going to go away. After talking about her sniper-fire-ful trip to Bosnia for four months, now that Hillary got talking just making it all up she's claiming that she only said it once. She said it four times and then her staff sent even more people out to claim it was true. Here's what Hillary is claiming today:
"You know I have written about this and described it in many different settings and I did misspeak the other day. This has been a very long campaign. Occasionally, I am a human being like everybody else. The military took great care of us. They were worried about taking a First Lady to a war zone and took some extra precautions and worried about all sorts of things. I have written about it in my book and talked about it on many other occasions and last week, you know, for the first time in 12 or so years I misspoke."
Last week? That's simply a lie, and at this point Hillary knows it. She said it four times over four months. She sent out scores of aides to defend the comments - comments she said FOUR TIMES. And now expects us to believe that she only said it once a week ago, so it was a slip of the tongue (mind you, it was a minute long slip of the tongue)? As Joe writes below, the fog of nonsense coming from Hillary and her people is getting rather absurd. And just as incredible, the Clinton people are now saying they're not going to answer any more questions about this issue.
News flash: Just because your latest talking point is to have the entire campaign lie about what really happened and now claim that it was only one time, doesn't change the fact that we have her on film saying it four different times.
MARCH 17: Clinton: "There Was No Greeting Ceremony, And We Basically Were Told To Run To Our Cars. Now, That Is What Happened." "Everyone else was told to sit on their bulletproof vests," Clinton said. "And we came in, in an evasive maneuver....There was no greeting ceremony, and we basically were told to run to our cars. Now, that is what happened." [CNN, 3/1708]
MARCH 17: Clinton, Speaking About Her Trip To Bosnia, Said "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 Vehicles To Get To Our Base." Clinton: "Good morning. I want to thank Secretary West for his years of service, not only as Secretary of the Army, but also to the Veteran's Administration, to our men and women in uniform, to our country. 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. But it was a moment of great pride for me to visit our troops, not only in our main base as Tuzla, but also at two outposts where they were serving in so many capacities to deactivate and remove landmines, to hunt and seek out those who had not complied with the Dayton Accords and put down their arms, and to build relationships with the people that might lead to a peace for them and their children." [Clinton speech (remarks as delivered), 3/17/08]
FEBRUARY 29: Clinton Said That The Welcoming Ceremony In Bosnia "Had To Be Moved Inside Because Of Sniper Fire." "At the rally, she belittled the idea that Mr. Obama's 2002 speech 'at an antiwar rally' prepared him to serve as commander in chief. She said he was 'missing in action' on the recent Senate vote on Iran and as chairman of a subcommittee responsible for NATO policy in Afghanistan. Contrasting that with her own experience, she evoked foreign battlefields, recalling a trip to Bosnia as first lady, when the welcoming ceremony 'had to be moved inside because of sniper fire.' She said she had traveled to more than 80 countries and was 'on the front lines' as the United States made peace in Bosnia and Northern Ireland and helped save refugees from ethnic cleansing in Kosovo." [NYT, 3/1/08] VIDEO
DECEMBER 29: Clinton That When She Went To Bosnia, "We Landed In One Of Those Corkscrew Landings And Ran Out Because They Said There Might Be Sniper Fire." Clinton, in Dubuque, Iowa on December 29, 2007, said "I was so honored to be able to travel around the world representing our country. You know, going to places that often times were, you know, not necessarily a place that a president could go. We used to say in the White House that if a place was too dangerous, too small or too poor, send the first lady. So, I had the time of my life. I was the first, you know, high- profile American to go into Bosnia after the peace accords were signed because we wanted to show that the United States was 100 percent behind the agreement. We wanted to make it clear to the Bosnians of all backgrounds. Plus we wanted to thank our American military and our allies for a great job. So, we landed in one of those corkscrew landings and ran out because they said there might be sniper fire. I don't remember anybody offering me tea on the tarmac. We got there and went to the base where our soldiers were and I went out to a lot of the forward operating bases to thank our young men and women in uniform and to thank the Europeans, including the Russians who were part of that effort." [CNN, 1/1/08]
Late February. This time, Hillary "particularly remembered" her heroic tale of valor in Bosnia that never happened. So that makes how many times now that Hillary particularly misspoke only "once"?
Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson told reporters yesterday that Hillary only misspoke "on one occasion" when she told voters that she arrived in Bosnia in 1996 under sniper fire and had to run for cover after the opening ceremony was canceled because of the gunfire. That's a flat-out lie. Hillary made similar claims at least four times since last December. And what's worse, her campaign repeatedly defended the "misspoken" comments, and even sent surrogates out to defend them, claiming they were true. Rather than admitting that Hillary screwed up, and puffed up her resume, the campaign is now choosing to lie to us about facts we already know.
Last night, Joe posted the Keith Olbermann segment about Hillary's false claims. Hillary spokesman Howard Wolfson claimed the following yesterday, per Olbermann: "It's possible she misspoke." Possible? Did she also misspeak the four other times she claimed the exact same story?
- In Dubuque, Iowa in December Hillary claimed that Bosnia was too dangerous for the president and that she ran across the tarmac.
- In late February, Hillary claimed during the White House 3 am phone ad roll-out that sniper fire forced the airport ceremony inside.
- In a March 17, 2008 press conference Hillary repeated the claims.
- In her March 17, 2008 prepared remarks - PREPARED remarks, i.e., these remarks were intentional - she said the same thing.
Let's revisit the latest details, per Olbermann:
Hillary's spokesman Howard Wolfson is now saying she was on the front lines by landing at the airport. As Olbermann noted, there was an 8 year old girl with flowers on those front lines, the US military commander in charge at the time said there was no threat of enemy fire, and Hillary herself stopped and took photos with military personnel. These were the front lines, but Hillary was doing photo opps with soldiers and 8 year old girls?
Here is Hillary's latest explanation, per yesterday:
Hillary: "I was also told that the greeting ceremony had been moved away from the tarmac but there was this 8 year old girl and I can't rush by her, I have to at least greet her, so I took her stuff and then I left."
Again, bull. There are photos and videos of Hillary and Chelsea posing with troops for photos on the tarmac. It was too dangerous for Hillary to linger any longer than a quick hug with a kid but the troops then put the president's wife's and daughter's lives at risk by posing for glamor shots? Then there's this:
Hillary yesterday: "I say a lot of things -- millions of words a day -- so if I misspoke, that was jsut a misstatement."
2 million words a day = 83,333 words an hour = 1388 words a minute = 23 words a second. Yes, you do say a lot of things.
Hillary's campaign is now saying that Hillary "misspoke" when she repeatedly asserted, in excruciating detail, how she ran from her plane in Bosnia in order to evade sniper fire after the greeting ceremony was canceled because of the imminent danger (does the phrase "That is what happened" ring a bell?). In fact, as we all now know, there was no sniper fire, and in fact, a little 8 year old girl greeted Hillary with flowers on the tarmac. As Jed points out via his DKos diary, with lots of videos, we're now to believe that Hillary misspoke, twice, in detail, for minutes at a time. We're also to believe that her spokespeople misspoke in defending her comments, and that two of her campaign surrogates, the former Secretary of the Army and a former Clinton speechwriter, also misspoke when defending Hillary's version of the story. And on top of that, if Hillary misspoke, then why did the campaign send the former Secretary of the Army and the former speechwriter out to defend the misspoken telling of the tale?
While we're at it, are we to believe that Hillary also misspoke when she made the incredible claim that when a country was too dangerous to send the president, the White House would send her instead? (Imagine the ads the Republicans are going to make with that whopper.) Did she misspeak when claiming that she helped bring peace to Northern Ireland (she didn't)? That she was instrumental in passing the children's health insurance bill (she wasn't)? When she adopted her various conflicting positions on NAFTA? Then again, she's also trying to convince us that the voters misspoke when they gave Obama an insurmountable lead in delegates and overall votes.
John wrote a post Friday about the Washington Post's evisceration of the claims Hillary Clinton made on March 17th about her 1996 trip to Bosnia vs. what really happened in 1996. She earned "four Pinnochios" from the Post because her version of what happened "is simply not credible."
From the Clinton campaign, we've been hearing a fictional re-write of the trip to Bosnia to burnish her foreign policy cred. Here is how, less than one week ago, Hillary described the harrowing trip:
"I certainly do remember that trip to Bosnia... we came in in an evasive maneuver... I remember landing under sniper fire... there was no greeting ceremony... we ran with our heads down, we basically were told to run to our cars... there was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, we basically were told to run to our cars, that is what happened."
Yeah... not so much.
A campaign aide to Clinton, Lissa Muscatine, did write and send her version of the trip to the Washington Post and it was added at 6:45 pm to the article on Friday. Unfortunately for Hillary, Muscatine's version is not quite the same as Hillary's - there was no recollection of the welcoming ceremony actually being canceled, nor of them being forced under fire to run to their cars with their heads down (in fact, video footage, as you shall see, shows no head-down running, but rather, Hillary and company being greeted by an eight-year old child bearing flowers).
Instead, this episode has undermined her credibility. Now, you can see for yourself what happened in Tuzla when Hillary landed -- and the JedReport has prepared the trailer for "Hillary in Tuzla: The Tale of Bosnian Sniper Fire":
