Clinton's Snipers

What bothers me about Hillary's sniper story isn't so much the lie, but rather that she stuck with it after it was disproved. She's told the story several times on the campaign trail since January and it wasn't until this week that reporters called her on it and she told the most detailed version yet. After the video showed up her campaign said she misspoke.

Bloomberg has her various responses: "for the first time in 12 or so years I misspoke", "I was joking, gosh, lighten up guys", "I say a lot of things -- millions of words a day -- so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement." Here's another angle: "Mrs Clinton told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that she had made the mistake about sniper fire because she had been "sleep-deprived". Her schedule showed she had no public engagements the day before her Washington speech and she spent the night in her Embassy Row home." And really trying the sleep deprivation card when you've been pitching yourself as the one to take the 3am phone call is pretty lame.

I don't know as I have enough information to agree with Carl Bernstein: "“She has often chosen to obfuscate, omit, and avoid. It is an understatement by now that she has been known to apprehend truths about herself and the events of her life that others do not exactly share…"

I liked how the Washington Post found her story happened to Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) six months before Clinton claimed it happened to her. That article also has one of my favorite sentences of the week: "Clinton's story has been debunked by sources including television news accounts and the memories of the comedian Sinbad."

I heard some report that she's been telling this story for a long time and it's even in her book. The Fact Hub has what she wrote in Living History [p. 343] "Security conditions were constantly changing in the former Yugoslavia, and they had recently deteriorated again. Due to reports of snipers in the hills around the airstrip, we were forced to cut short an event on the tarmac with local children, though we did have time to meet them and their teachers and to learn how hard they had worked during the war to continue classes in any safe spot they could find. … We were then off to the fortified American base at Tuzla, where over two thousand American, Russian, Canadian, British, and Polish soldiers were encamped in a large tent city." Unfortunately there's no supporting evidence for event that claim. They also found an article that said "Protected by sharpshooters, Hillary Rodham Clinton swooped into a military zone by Black Hawk helicopter." Maybe the snipers were ours.

I believe all of the candidates have lied at some point. In the scheme of things, this one isn't so bad. Unlike Bush's lies it didn't start a war. Bill Clinton's lied about Lewinsky to protect himself. HIllary's lie seems to be to enhance her toughness. But still if after she was called out on it she just said yeah I must be misremembering that, I'm sorry I think it would been in the news a couple of days and been done. By defending it as long as she did (and since it was also originally in stump speeches her campaign must have vetted it) she just made it worse. In all the things I've seen written about what's she's said on the matter, I didn't see one place where she said she was sorry. I want an apology. I want an admission of a mistake and remorse for it and then I'll be glad to move on. Same with the vote to authorize military force in Iraq. But she doesn't apologize. The closest I've seen is a few weeks ago she said of Bill's comments about Jesse Jackson and Obama, "You know I am sorry if anyone was offended. It was certainly not meant in any way to be offensive," and a non-apology apology doesn't count. I'm sorry you were offended is not I'm sorry I did something (and in this case I'm sorry my husband did something).

By never apologizing and by digging in deeper when confronted with facts, she reminds me of Bush. While I like her policies I have doubts she could work with Republicans to get her policies passed in the Senate. Certainly I think Obama will have an easier time.

Since writing about this on Monday, I haven't thought too much about the story. I was out with some friends last night, one of whom was out of the country for a couple of weeks so it came up again. I looked through the articles linked to above and felt there was something missing in all of this. Then it occurred to me that it was Jon Stewart's take. The Daily Show was in reruns last week. Tomorrow's episode should be good.