Posted on 03/25/2008 7:33:48 AM PDT by jdm
Hillary Clinton finally acknowledged what even Howard Wolfson couldn’t spin away — that she didn’t stroll off an airplane in Tuzla in 1996 under sniper fire. In an editorial meeting with the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, Hillary called the controversy a “minor blip”, but admitted that she made a “misstatement” when it came to the danger she faced in Tuzla. That admission only came after video clearly showed Hillary and her entourage, including a 15-year-old Chelsea, smiling and moving unhurriedly to a greeting ceremony she claimed never happened:
Clinton acknowleged today for the first time that it was a “misstatement” when she said in a major prepared foreign policy speech last week that “I remember landing under sniper fire” but also tried to brush off the entire issue as “a minor blip.” She also gave a revised account of her airplane landing and her tarmac greeting at the Tuzla Air Force base 12 years ago — seeking to explain a picture re-published this weekend in the Washington Post showing her and daughter Chelsea calmly greeting an 8-year-old girl.
In her speech last week at George Washington University, Clinton maintained “[t]here 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. Today, she told our group at the Daily News that she was informed that we “had to meet this 8-year-old girl,” so “I took her stuff and left.”
The dispute is hardly a trivial one because the New York senator has tried to stress that foreign policy experience is why voters in Pennsylvania’s April 22 primary should chose her over Sen. Barack Obama, the overall leader in delegates and primary votes. And she has placed the Bosnia trip front and center, to the extent that her account of her visit there led off last week’s televised speech. Here’s what she said then:
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.
Even CBS decided to offer the conclusive proof of her “misstatement”, showing the video on its national news program last night. When CBS provides the torpedo, then the rest of us know the target has already been sunk for the Clintons.
Hillary still wants to spin this, as her extended answer demonstrates. She insists that her argument about foreign-policy experience still remains relevant. The meltdown over her credibility has fogged the actual argument in which Hillary used Tuzla, which was that she was so good at foreign policy that her husband’s administration would send her instead of the diplomats, especially if it was too dangerous for the President to visit personally.
Unfortnately for Hillary, she still hasn’t come up with an actual example. She told the Inquirer editors that she visited 80 countries, but that doesn’t mean she conducted any heavy foreign-policy duties on those trips. First Ladies travel abroad frequently, with and without their presidential husbands, but that doesn’t constitute the kind of experience that Hillary demands we infer from her journeys. In all of the cases we have seen, she conducted the kind of ceremonial duties that First Ladies always do, not hard-charging diplomatic initiatives that would demonstrate better experience than Barack Obama or John McCain, especially the latter.
And now the admission that she misrepresented the Tuzla trip in both danger and importance undermines what little credibility she had left after insisting that she should receive credit for all of the foreign-policy initiatives during her husband’s administration. Without experience or credibility, just what can she offer?
I hadnt heard that one..
WaPo needs to revise their “Pinnochios” scale - currently the highest (lowest) rating is “4 Pinnochios” for telling a “whopper” - but this one deserves FIVE Pinnochios for “total fabrication concocted for the nefarious purpose of deceivinng the American electorate into voting for a vicious incompetent charlatan.”
“...I remember landing under sniper fire”...”
If the base was under sniper fire, and the air controller knew it, the plane would have never been allowed to land. Especialy with the First Lady aboard.
She lied. She knew she lied. She got caught telling the lie. And now she’s trying to crawfish her way out of the lie. Ain’t gonna work, hitlery. You have just been owned.
...hmmm that has potential. If you can work that into conversations, that just might have legs.
The true Hillery is now known; finally the MSM must admit her lies or mis-spokens. We know that this one was a miss-written-it-down-in-my-talltale-book mistake and finally the MSMs are saying so.
Since they are not for Hillary, they must be covering and promoting Baraak H. Obama.
“Has any of Hillary’s stories ever proven to be true.”
Well, she was able to come up with dates and witnesses for her duck hunting!
My favorite is her riding her bike behind a truck spraying DDT and inhaling the sweet fumes (as a child). I have no doubt it’s true, little Hillary huffing insecticides.
“If the base was under sniper fire, and the air controller knew it, the plane would have never been allowed to land. Especialy with the First Lady aboard.”
Except under direct orders from Bill with special instructions to make sure Hill was wearing her bullseye jacket and helmet.
I thought I heard that this was a stolen line made by a President when referencing his Vice President. Does anyone know where this concept started (which President, which VP)? With Hillary's accusations of Barry stealing speeches from others, is this yet another point of hypocrisy?
LOL. You need to rewrite her memoir.
“This has got to be the worst field of prez candidates in US history.”
AMEN!! I cannot believe that out of all of the RATs and all of the Republicans in all of these 50 United States, these three are the best we can come up with — an old, hate-filled socialist-feminazi; a younger, hate-filled black/white socialist man; an old, crazy, Lib masquerading as a RINO, masquerading as a “conservative Republican”. GEEZ!!
All politicians lie. Embellish their resume. Not condoning it but just stating simple facts.
Perhaps someone should look at all the little lies that Obama spins. ... “poor me I was raised by a single-teenaged mother.” Forget the fact that his mother married Obama’s daddy, then divored and remarried another muslim, who headed little Obama’s household until his mamma sent him to live with his rich white grandparents in Hiwaii.
So in his attempts to be more like the blacks in America he embellishes being raised by a “single-teenage-woman” so that he can be more like the 70% or more born out of wedlock african-Americans in this country ... he sterotypes his “own people.”
But the real question is, are the african-Americans really his “own people??”
I always liked the Nixonian way of saying it. Her earlier statements were at variance with the facts.
Here's a few highlights:
1. I remember when I was a boy they burned the black churches in our area -BJ Clinton No black churches burned in Arkansas during that period.
2. I did not have sex with that woman. -BJ Clinton
3. I was named after Sir Edmund Hillary.- Hillary Rodham She was born years before Edmund Hillary became internationally known.
4. Chelsea was jogging near the twin towers when the plane hit. -HRC Not even close.
5. We were under sniper fire. -HRC
6. I have thirty-five years of experience for the presidency. -HRC
I grew up in the Chicago suburbs (40’s-50’s), the spraying for mosquitos was done at night, usually after midnight, so as few people as possible would be impacted. While it is poosible, I seriously doubt her story.
But politically, it's damaging. We think now that pesticides are horrible and damaging.
So I spread the tale of Hillary riding her Schwinn 3 speed through a fine mist of DDT for fun. “Hmm, that explains a lot...”
Don’t forget Hillary story about NASA where she claimed to have applied as a young girl and was turned down because she was a girl. She told the story several times and it was factually different each time and was shown to be false.
I haven’t heard that one. Was she trying for the astronaut program or what?
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