Politicians make mistakes. They do. They are in fact human. Not only are they human, but they are under a social microscope, and under great pressure. Every waking second is scrutinized. That is why they tend to speak broadly and carefully when addressing issues they are supposed to know. And from time to time, they stumble. They stumble and the people therefor react. Now, the reaction can vary depending on how severe the mistake was (Iraq, anyone?), whether or not the politician had foul motives, or whether it was an innocent mistake (i.e. stupidity, naivety, misinformed or ignorance). The politician is therefor expected to address his/her mistake with an explanation in order to quell any offenses, fears or misunderstandings. And finally, the people in turn, react to this explanation based on how they gage the politician's honesty and situation.Hillary Clinton had recently been exposed by CBS and Michael Dobbs from the Washington Post (giving it "4 Pinocchios" no less) for making up a story of how she landed in Bosnia amidst "sniper fire" during her years as first lady. This is what she 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 the vehicles to get to our base. But it was a moment of great pride for me to visit our troops"
You can read the Post article here and view the CBS report here and here.
Hillary should've been roasted for this one.
Point number one: It was her. This is her speaking; not someone else, not some crazy campaign affiliate, not her pastor, not a family member - her. These were spoken by her.
Point number two: It was scripted. The reporter in the video is asking for clarification of her January stump speech when she was taking on Obama's assertion that being first lady isn't exactly the actual elected, presidential experience she's made herself out to be holding (and now that we are finally getting a glimpse of her newly released first lady records, we can now take that assertion as fact. Conveniently and "coincidentally" for her, they were released after the Ohio and Texas primaries). She originally made this claim, along with a string of others, in scripted, prepared, typical, stump-speech format. This wasn't just speaking off the top of her head. This was scripted. In the stump speech, she was careful enough to say "Somebody said there might be sniper fire" (even though all who were with her don't remember any mention of sniper fire or even the threat of it). But to follow up with her clarification that there was, in fact, actual sniper fire is a bold and stupid move.
Point number three: The clarification was not just a slip of the tongue. This isn't like Sen. George Allen and his "Mucaca" slip. This was a multi-phrased, embellished story. She starts it with "I remember landing under sniper fire."
But this is where it gets good for me.
The media took her false clarification and slammed her on it with the aforementioned article and CBS news report. It ends up getting millions of views on YouTube - topping the amount of hits received by video of Obama's controversial pastor and rivaling video of his speech on race. She made her mistake and the people responded. But what's truly precious about this whole episode is her explanation: Misspeaking.
She said in response:
"Now let me tell you what I can remember, OK -- because what I was told was that we had to land a certain way and move quickly because of the threat of sniper fire. So I misspoke...I went to 80 countries, you know. I gave contemporaneous accounts, I wrote about a lot of this in my book. you know, I think that, a minor blip, you know, if I said something that, you know, I say a lot of things -- millions of words a day -- so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement."
Aside from the fact that no one involved recalled telling her or hearing someone tell her anything pertaining to sniper fire - and the fact that the war was over and that they were in the safest area of that region, I'd like to examine the wording here. I examine it because this was her prepared response. She had time to consult her advisers on how to best handle this flap - days in fact. And this is the word she chose to use in her explanation.
The word "misspeak" is the safest political word for lie. NPR did a great episode examining the meaning of the word. A lie is nothing short of an untruth and that is exactly what Hillary did. She spoke an untruth. Now, did she speak this untruth by simply "misspeaking" a word or phrase? Did she "misspeak" a word that she accidentally used incorrectly in a phrase or sentence? Did she "misspeak" because she was misinformed on the topic? Did she "misspeak" about a topic she did not fully understand out of simple ignorance?
No. She did none of these.
This is not "misspeaking". It's, in fact, what real people call a lie. Now, I'll be kind. I don't think it merits the ultimate burning at the stake. It's not like she lied under oath (she learned that lesson from her hubby). But a lie is a lie is a lie.
What she did was fictitiously embellish. She was under pressure to make herself seem like she was as qualified as she was trying to feed us. And in doing that, she lied. But this is what makes me worried: This is the amount of pressure it took for her to lie to us? And not only that, she had to craft out a word like "misspeak" in order to save face - further misleading the public. Now, I know it's not like she lied about something like weapons of mass destruction in order to invade Iraq (no, she just declined reading that bill and voted for it anyway; costing thousands of lives and billions of needed dollars in order to appear strong politically on foreign policy), but it just shows how much she'll do to project whatever she needs to project in order to win votes - even lie to us if she needs to. And it deserves, at the very least, a roasting. It does make me question her honesty - especially in her particular situation: the campaign trail where we are to examine the candidate for the most important job in the country - if not world.
I'm sorry, but I'm sick of it. I'm sick of the lies, the side-stepping, the constant calculative maneuvering. I want transparency in my candidate. I know that Obama isn't absolutely perfect. He's one of those human politicians who make mistakes like any of them, but he at least supports transparency and asks the voters to hold him accountable. It's just one more reason why I'm throwing my support his way. I'll take truths over "misstatements" any day.
"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"
You can read the Post article here and view the CBS report here and here.
Hillary should've been roasted for this one.
Point number one: It was her. This is her speaking; not someone else, not some crazy campaign affiliate, not her pastor, not a family member - her. These were spoken by her.
Point number two: It was scripted. The reporter in the video is asking for clarification of her January stump speech when she was taking on Obama's assertion that being first lady isn't exactly the actual elected, presidential experience she's made herself out to be holding (and now that we are finally getting a glimpse of her newly released first lady records, we can now take that assertion as fact. Conveniently and "coincidentally" for her, they were released after the Ohio and Texas primaries). She originally made this claim, along with a string of others, in scripted, prepared, typical, stump-speech format. This wasn't just speaking off the top of her head. This was scripted. In the stump speech, she was careful enough to say "Somebody said there might be sniper fire" (even though all who were with her don't remember any mention of sniper fire or even the threat of it). But to follow up with her clarification that there was, in fact, actual sniper fire is a bold and stupid move.
Point number three: The clarification was not just a slip of the tongue. This isn't like Sen. George Allen and his "Mucaca" slip. This was a multi-phrased, embellished story. She starts it with "I remember landing under sniper fire."
But this is where it gets good for me.
The media took her false clarification and slammed her on it with the aforementioned article and CBS news report. It ends up getting millions of views on YouTube - topping the amount of hits received by video of Obama's controversial pastor and rivaling video of his speech on race. She made her mistake and the people responded. But what's truly precious about this whole episode is her explanation: Misspeaking.
She said in response:
"Now let me tell you what I can remember, OK -- because what I was told was that we had to land a certain way and move quickly because of the threat of sniper fire. So I misspoke...I went to 80 countries, you know. I gave contemporaneous accounts, I wrote about a lot of this in my book. you know, I think that, a minor blip, you know, if I said something that, you know, I say a lot of things -- millions of words a day -- so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement."
Aside from the fact that no one involved recalled telling her or hearing someone tell her anything pertaining to sniper fire - and the fact that the war was over and that they were in the safest area of that region, I'd like to examine the wording here. I examine it because this was her prepared response. She had time to consult her advisers on how to best handle this flap - days in fact. And this is the word she chose to use in her explanation.
The word "misspeak" is the safest political word for lie. NPR did a great episode examining the meaning of the word. A lie is nothing short of an untruth and that is exactly what Hillary did. She spoke an untruth. Now, did she speak this untruth by simply "misspeaking" a word or phrase? Did she "misspeak" a word that she accidentally used incorrectly in a phrase or sentence? Did she "misspeak" because she was misinformed on the topic? Did she "misspeak" about a topic she did not fully understand out of simple ignorance?
No. She did none of these.
This is not "misspeaking". It's, in fact, what real people call a lie. Now, I'll be kind. I don't think it merits the ultimate burning at the stake. It's not like she lied under oath (she learned that lesson from her hubby). But a lie is a lie is a lie.
What she did was fictitiously embellish. She was under pressure to make herself seem like she was as qualified as she was trying to feed us. And in doing that, she lied. But this is what makes me worried: This is the amount of pressure it took for her to lie to us? And not only that, she had to craft out a word like "misspeak" in order to save face - further misleading the public. Now, I know it's not like she lied about something like weapons of mass destruction in order to invade Iraq (no, she just declined reading that bill and voted for it anyway; costing thousands of lives and billions of needed dollars in order to appear strong politically on foreign policy), but it just shows how much she'll do to project whatever she needs to project in order to win votes - even lie to us if she needs to. And it deserves, at the very least, a roasting. It does make me question her honesty - especially in her particular situation: the campaign trail where we are to examine the candidate for the most important job in the country - if not world.
I'm sorry, but I'm sick of it. I'm sick of the lies, the side-stepping, the constant calculative maneuvering. I want transparency in my candidate. I know that Obama isn't absolutely perfect. He's one of those human politicians who make mistakes like any of them, but he at least supports transparency and asks the voters to hold him accountable. It's just one more reason why I'm throwing my support his way. I'll take truths over "misstatements" any day.
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