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The Tales Hillary Tells
Newsweek ^ | 4-7-08 issue | Jonathan Alter

Posted on 03/30/2008 10:15:00 AM PDT by kingattax

We know why politicians lie when they get in trouble: they think the consequences of telling the truth are too severe to bear. That's why Richard Nixon lied about Watergate, and Bill Clinton about Monica Lewinsky. The more complicated question is why they fib—why politicians insist on stretching unimportant stories in ways that are easy to check and refute.

Hillary Clinton's oft-told yarn about ducking sniper fire on the tarmac in Tuzla, Bosnia, in 1996 has gotten a lot of publicity, maybe too much. Her misrepresentation of her role in the Northern Ireland peace talks was more serious but less visual on YouTube. Even so, the Tuzla Tale tells us something about her insecurities and frustrations, which in turn helps explain why she's losing.

Everyone tells fish stories once in a while, exaggerating a tale for dramatic effect, and if they claim they never have, well, that's a fish story in itself. But there's a difference between telling your Aunt Mitzi that you caught a fish that was two feet long when it was actually 15 inches, and falsely claiming you wrote the Haitian Constitution (vice presidential candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1920), or had helped liberate Nazi death camps (President Ronald Reagan to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and separately to Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal in 1983).

Politicians by nature construct narratives about themselves, polished personal stories that make them shinier, if not larger than life. And the good ones start the self-mythologizing early. Barack Obama's memoir, "Dreams From My Father," written before he entered politics, includes a few composite characters and disputed details (e.g., co-workers say he didn't have his own secretary when he worked at a company in New York).

(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2008; alter; clinton; clintonistas; clintonlies; demlies; democrats; hillary; hillaryscandals
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alter is using the 'all politicians fib' defense for hellary. he must have gotten an 'arkancide' reminder from someone since his recent writings weren't very helpful to the beast. he has been a clinton apologist for a long time.
1 posted on 03/30/2008 10:15:00 AM PDT by kingattax
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To: kingattax

Hillary lies about like she breathes.


2 posted on 03/30/2008 10:16:36 AM PDT by kjo
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To: kingattax

Shrillery is a pathological liar. She tells so many lies that I doubt she even realizes it any more when she does. She tells lies to cover up lies she told to cover up more lies. Hers is the mind of a sick, depraved and totally morally bankrupt person.


3 posted on 03/30/2008 10:17:28 AM PDT by infantrywhooah (Hold your nose and vote in November. Even McCain is better than the alternatives)
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To: infantrywhooah

My father always told me that if you are going to be telling lies, you better have a very good memory.


4 posted on 03/30/2008 10:22:12 AM PDT by rawhide
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To: kingattax

In short modern politicians are trash. Their very essence is “The Lie.”


5 posted on 03/30/2008 10:26:24 AM PDT by AEMILIUS PAULUS (It is a shame that when these people give a riot)
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To: kingattax

Liar = Hilliary


6 posted on 03/30/2008 10:29:52 AM PDT by mtbopfuyn (The fence is "absolutely not the answer" - Gov. Rick Perry (R, TX))
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To: kingattax

If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.

Hitler


7 posted on 03/30/2008 10:30:18 AM PDT by COUNTrecount
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To: kingattax

The, “everybody does it” thingy won’t fly.

There has never been, isn’t now, nor will be in the future, a human being who doesn’t tell lies.

Very few EARN the reputation as a “known liar”, however.

How many lies must one tell to get “the reputation”?

What sort of liar does one have to be to pretend he doesn’t know that?

The weak minds who lie to themselves are the saddest of all liars.


8 posted on 03/30/2008 10:32:21 AM PDT by Matchett-PI (Proud member of "Operation Chaos" having the T-shirt , ball cap and bumpersticker to prove it.)
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To: kingattax
I truly believe the hildabeast is deathly afraid someone will find out just how scared and insecure she really is. People as insecure as she seems to be, often attempt to create a persona in direct contrast to their true self.

Picture a crying sniveling hildabeast curled up in a fetal position seeing herself and her pathetic life as it really is, a total lie created in her small insecure mind.

9 posted on 03/30/2008 10:40:04 AM PDT by WesternPacific (I am tired of voting for the lesser of two evils!)
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To: kingattax

People are over-analyzing this. It’s very simple. The Clintons got away with lying so often for so long. It’s only now that they are finally starting to be held accountable to some extent.


10 posted on 03/30/2008 10:41:47 AM PDT by Tigercap (McCain. For Supreme Court judge nominations and WOT progress if nothing else.)
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To: COUNTrecount
If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.

Hitler

Wasn't she named after him because he climbed Mt. Everest?

Or took elephants over the Alps, or sometting like that?

11 posted on 03/30/2008 10:42:05 AM PDT by Gorzaloon
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To: kingattax

12 posted on 03/30/2008 10:43:00 AM PDT by COBOL2Java ("McCain is a war hero. He's also a useful idiot for the Democrats." - Mark Levin)
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To: kingattax

What drives me absolutely crazy about the Hillary sniper lie, is how she chuckled when repeating it. What was THAT all about?


13 posted on 03/30/2008 10:44:00 AM PDT by Watershed
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To: kingattax
We know why politicians lie when they get in trouble: they think the consequences of telling the truth are too severe to bear.

Wow. That's exactly right. Although Alter doesn't really take the ball and run with it in the rest of the article.

But the truth is Hillary has no foreign policy experience. The truth is she has virtually no economic policy experience. The truth is she has virtually no accomplishments she can hang her hat on after 7 years of being a Senatorette.

The truth is Hillary is a completely and utterly pantsuit.

She can't run on that so she has to lie and then let her minions "clarify" and "explain what she really meant" and crapola like that.

14 posted on 03/30/2008 10:44:44 AM PDT by Texas Eagle (Could pacifists exist if there weren't people brave enough to go to war for their right to exist?)
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To: kingattax

I am amazed that liberal organs like Newsweek are going beyond the all politicians lie excuse when they are looking at Hillary. I think they are starting to see that with Hillary (& Bill too)the lying is more pathological. Hillary has classic megalomania and is compelled to fabricate these stories to support her delusions of grandeur. The more I see of this in Hillary the more afraid I am of her ever being President. I think even some liberals are seeing this too.


15 posted on 03/30/2008 10:45:58 AM PDT by The Great RJ ("Mir we bleiwen wat mir sin" or "We want to remain what we are." ..Luxembourg motto)
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To: kingattax

Amazing..I thought the story was about Hillary and it turns out it is about FDR and Reagan. Who would have thought it.

BTW Jonathan, Hillary is no FDR or Reagan.


16 posted on 03/30/2008 10:47:51 AM PDT by rod1 (uestion)
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To: kingattax

For many years, the MSM has been mesmerized with the Clintons, fawning over them and covering for their many lies, not even bothering to investigate their whoppers. Now, the MSM has a new darling, and his name is Barack Obama. Hillary just, as usual, took it for granted the MSM would cover as it had always done for her and Bill. The Bosnia thing was such a BALD-FACED, BARE-FACED LIE that it is almost hysterical to watch old videos of her and Chelsea sauntering slowly and peacefully, unmolested and unhurried giving audience to the children at the airfield.


17 posted on 03/30/2008 10:48:36 AM PDT by Twinkie (TWO WRONGS DON'T MAKE A RIGHT !!!)
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To: Watershed

Simple....she got hit by a baseball while at a NY Yankee’s game (muddling her memory when convenient) during the 80s although she was a Cubs’ fan and was physically in Arkansas at the time.


18 posted on 03/30/2008 10:50:20 AM PDT by rod1 (uestion)
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To: kingattax
Hillary Clinton's oft-told yarn about ducking sniper fire on the tarmac in Tuzla, Bosnia, in 1996 has gotten a lot of publicity, maybe too much.

Riiiight!
You don't duck sniper fire. You DROP "for no reason" with a little hole, where it counts. Dumb beeeeech!

19 posted on 03/30/2008 10:54:15 AM PDT by Leo Carpathian (fffffFRrrreeeeepppeeee!)
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To: infantrywhooah
Shrillery is a pathological liar.

Just one facet of her sociopathic personality.

20 posted on 03/30/2008 11:43:31 AM PDT by upchuck (Who wins doesn't matter. They're all liberals. Spend your time and money to take back Congress.)
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