BREAKING ON FR - Bill Clinton may be caught telling the truth in Rosa Parks bus anecdote

lady at Hot Springs School District | 11-3-05 | Doug from Upland

[doug from upland]

I never thought I would be defending Bill Clinton on FreeRepublic. Mark this date as an historic moment. Clinton might have actually told the truth.

From the text of his Rosa Parks funeral speech (which, of course, he managed to make about himself)

CLINTON: I remember, as if it were yesterday, that fateful day 50 years ago. I was a 9-year-old southern white boy who rode a segregated bus every single day of my life. I sat in the front. Black folk sat in the back.

When Rosa showed us that black folks didn't have to sit in the back anymore, two of my friends and I, who strongly approved of what she had done, decided we didn't have to sit in the front anymore.

(APPLAUSE)

It was just a tiny gesture by three ordinary kids. But that tiny gesture was repeated over and over again millions and millions of times in the hearts and minds of children, their parents, their grandparents, their great grandparents, proving that she did help to set us all free.

In 1953, Clinton moved to Hot Springs and started school at St. John's Catholic. He then attended Ramble Elementary. He was nine years old when Rosa Parks defied the law on the bus.

I spoke with a very nice lady at the Hot Springs School District. Ramble Elementary has been replaced with a newer school, Park Elementary. The original Ramble building still stands and is a threatre.

There were no school buses. Kids either walked, were taken by parents, or took a city bus to school.

It was a diverse neighborhood. My source mentioned blacks, Lituanians, and Jews. Kids just seemed to all get along.

The source talked to another man in her office who, like her, grew up and went to Hot Springs schools at the same time as Bill Clinton. She and her friends would sometimes join the black kids in the back of the bus. She thought it was the right thing to do.

It is entirely possible that Clinton did join a few of his friends and sit in the back of the bus after hearing about Rosa Parks. Let's give him credit for a possible truth telling episode.

NOTE: He still, however, is a liar, a perjurer, a subornerer of perjury, an obstructor of justice, a threat to national security, a rapist, a threat to witnesses, a horrible and completely phony human being, and an impeached failed president with an evil and dangerous wife.

[Goreknowshowtocheat]

I thought he was going to tell the one about hearing of burning of black churches in Arkansas.

[emerson boozer]

I guess youre right it is some real news when he might have been caught tellin the truth. Thats a rare catch that hardly ever comes along.

[doug from upland]

- He was nine years old when Rosa Parks protested.

- He went to school in Hot Springs.

- Kids sometimes did join black friends in the back of the bus.

- He was in a diverse neighborhood.

- There were city buses that kids sometimes took to school.

There are some elements of truth.

[VRWCmember]

How was it proven that he was actually telling the truth? I'm confused.

That hasn't been proven. What has been proven is that the "proof" that he was lying (i.e. the anachronism regarding school buses and desegregation of schools in Arkansas) was based on an incorrect assumption that clinton was talking about school buses. What DFU determined was that if clinton rode a bus to school, it would have been a city bus, and therefore what he described COULD HAVE HAPPENED. The alleged incident of clinton's joining the black kids in the back of the bus is apparently not all that remarkable as those who were in the area at the time have indicated that children of different races tended to ride in the back of the bus together a lot. What is extremely remarkable about this story is the possibility that clinton has told a story that MIGHT have a high degree of truthfulness to it.

[TomServo]

I can understand that, so did I. But Clinton is, was and always will be about Clinton. First and foremost. Clinton no more cares about Civil Rights than my cat. It's all about him, all the time, 24/7. That's it.

Anytime he can score points off of anything, he's gonna do it. He'll say anything, do anything to make it about him. He no more rode the back of any bus than I did. And if any of you folks believe otherwise, you really need to review his history of narcissism, self-absorption, egotism and conceit.

[Ragnorak]

We have learned that many people did not approve of the "back of the bus." Did Slick Willy convey this or did he say something to make him sound somehow special and dismiss this somewhat common noble gesture by so many others?

Has he ever lied in a similar way, such as perhaps walking through Harlem on his way from London to Arkansas?

Would someone with such well developed "civil rights morality" at the age of nine choose J. William Fulbright, a staunch segregationist, as a political mentor?

I have no doubt that Slick Willy saw someone else do this, that he probably abused and/or bullied him or her at the time, and is now stealing the story of this other persons actions as his own. Liars always do.

[doug from upland]

NOTE TO ALL:

I went into this hoping to be able to 100% prove he was lying. I wanted to break something and rip him apart. In this case, it was breaking news that he MIGHT be telling at least a little truth here.

[G.Mason]

" It was just a tiny gesture by three ordinary kids. But that tiny gesture was repeated over and over again millions and millions of times in the hearts and minds of children, their parents, their grandparents, their great grandparents, proving that she did help to set us all free." ... Bill Clinton, as per the article.

Bill Clinton is full of it.

This statement is all about Bill and nothing else.

This saviour of the world, through his superior intellect and understanding, (at nine years old, no less) was responsible (along with Rosa Parks who was not the first black to sit in the back of a bus) for getting millions and millions of persons to see the error of their ways by simply sitting in the back of the bus. A bus he no doubt didn't take because he lived too close to the school.

This place has become amemic with dreamers and wishful thinkers.

[Cinnamon]

sad isn't it? him being caught telling the truth.. it means his life revolves aroung a litany of lies

[calrighty]

Okay.

[calrighty]

Okay.

[TheSpottedOwl]

A broken watch is right twice a day. I still have trouble believing it though.

[Wild Irish Rogue]

When I was 9 years old, I was setting up my Army soldiers, building forts, playing cowboys and Indians and slogging through streams looking for frogs and other treasures.
I remember my mother describing how she had cried when she saw a store owner angrily refuse to let a black man get a drink from the hose outside his store.
As an adult, living in the north, she was afraid to confront the owner.
Clinton was a 9 year old boy living in the turbulent South.
By his own words-
"The violence and dysfunction in our home," Clinton has said, "made me a loner, which is contrary to the way people view me, because I'm gregarious, happy, all of that. But I had to construct a whole life inside my own mind."
I can't imagine a lonely, dysfunctional 9 year old boy of the deep South, standing up to adults and doing what he claims to have done.

[AgThorn]

NOTE: He still, however, is a liar, a perjurer, a subornerer of perjury, an obstructor of justice, a threat to national security, a rapist, a threat to witnesses, a horrible and completely phony human being, and an impeached failed president with an evil and dangerous wife.

ROFL! But, all that said, let's give him credit for this one possible speach having a shread of potential truth in it !!! well said.

[calrighty]

The irony being that most of us(when we were children like Bill still is)were afraid of being caught in a lie. Now we are afraid we caught him tellin the truth.

[TheSpottedOwl]

Lots of progress since then, now cities in the South, like New Orleans, have school buses, but no drivers.

Hahahaha, good one!

[doug from upland]

The only adult he would have stood up to was a bus driver who might have paid no attention or didn't really care too much.

[manwiththehands]

PIGS FLYING EVERYWHERE!

[Protagoras]

I'm guessing he knew the kids who actually sat in the back with the other kids. They sat back there because the other kids were friends, not because they thought it was right.

He saw a chance to inject himself into the story and make himself into a mini Rosa.

This man cannot speak the truth. In my own personal court of opinion, he is guilty until proven innocent. He is scum.

[Deo volente]

He still succeeded in making HIMSELF the story, not Rosa Parks.

It was her funeral, and he managed to steal the spotlight. As he always does.