Posted on 02/12/2005 8:24:00 AM PST by Carl/NewsMax
Though she barely escaped prosecution just a few years ago for making false statements to federal investigators, New Yorkers now believe that Sen. Hillary Clinton is a truthful person.
Nearly two-thirds of Empire Staters - 64 percent - told a Quinnipiac University survey last week that the former first lady was "honest and trustworthy." Thirty percent disagreed.
Even among Republicans, 38 percent gave Hillary high marks for honesty. Among Democrats, the figure was a sky-high 85 percent.
Quinnipaic's polling director Maurice Carroll said Hillary's new honesty numbers were a big improvement from the old days.
"When Clinton took office four years ago, her husband had just pardoned Marc Rich and the Clintons were accused of looting White House furniture," he noted. Sounding somewhat bewildered, Carroll mused, "Now? Two-thirds of New Yorkers say she's a good - and honest - Senator."
'Honest' Hillary's new image also has to come as a shock to former independent counsel Robert Ray, who nearly indicted her for lying in the Travelgate scandal.
"Mrs. Clinton . . . played a role in the decision to fire the [travel office] employees and thus, her statement to the contrary under oath to this office is factually false," Ray said in his final report on the imbroglio.
Despite the scathing conclusion, the top lawman gave the first lady the benefit of the doubt and didn't file charges, saying he couldn't prove she knew her testimony was false.
Ray's predecessor, Ken Starr, also came perilously close to fling charges against Hillary for her Whitewater fibs.
In their book "Truth at any Cost," reporters Susan Schmidt and Michael Weisskopf detailed a 1998 meeting between Starr's lead prosecutor Hickman Ewing and his legal team in Little Rock, where they weighed indicting Hillary:
"[Ewing] paced the room for more than three hours, recalling facts from memory," Schmidt and Weisskopf reported. "He spoke passionately, laying out a case that the first lady had obstructed government investigators and made false statements about her legal work for [Jim] McDougal's S&L, particularly the thrift's notorious multimillion-dollar Castle Grande real estate project."
However, Ewing's case against Mrs. Clinton had been severely weakened by the fact that Mr. McDougal had died a month before.
"Without him, prosecutors would have a hard time describing the S&L dealings they suspected Hillary Clinton had lied about," Schmidt and Weisskopf said.
Another person sure to be shocked by Hillary's new reputation for honesty is media mogul Steven Brill, who accused her of falsely claiming she helped 9/11 victim families while he was writing his 2003 book, "After."
Brill told WABC Radio that her staff had provided him with "an elaborate story, with an elaborate subtext of memos and phone calls - a long, long story" detailing Hillary's meetings with 9/11 relatives.
But after checking with the families themselves, Brill said, "None of it turned out to be true . . . They gave me documents and phone calls and things like that which just plain never happened."
sucker born every minute, NYers proved that when they elected her...........
Nobody called me...
Ping to NY FReepers -- 38% of Republicans polled think HRC is honest? You folks have some real work ahead of you in educating those voters.
Ever wonder why she chose NY to run for a US Senate seat?
nobody asked anybody i know .
we're never called for an opinion .
(I still don't think the Democrat Party is dumb enough -- although they're certainly desperate -- to nominate her in '08.)
In New York, honesty is accompanied by a "wink" "wink".
after algore, skerry and now howlin'dean as head of the party, they will indeed nominate hillary for a run in '08, who else have they got? we can only pray it will finish off the dem party..........
I guarantee you that if we dig far enough into those polled, we'll find out this poll is a fib!!
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Saying Hillary is honest, is like saying the deaths of Vince Foster, McDougal, etc, we just accidents...sorry, world, honesty is not part of the HildaBeast's legacy...
That's why it is a blue (blew?) state, it is out of step with the real America. Not to worry, any one elected there cannot be elected there cannot win a nation-wide election.
There are a lot of things you can call Hellary
But honest and trustworthy IS not one of them
We need to expose all the lying polls taken of the BEAST of NY. We have to be on top of every lie, every word, and every move the RATS make over their satanic savior Hitlery!! Arm yourselves for the battle has ALREADY began!!
The sample for this poll (paid for by the Billary to Rule the World committee) was drawn from a village of 7,000 Hasidic Jews about 35 miles north of New York City.
Coincidentally this same village voted 95% for Hillary in her election to the Senate after receiving promises of large federal funding for community projects from the candidate and has just received an additional $20 million dollars in community block grants in the last 6 weeks.
Nearly two-thirds of Massachusetts residents would get in the passenger seat of Ted Kennedy's car.
Oh I see, they didn't trust her then but they do NOW.
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