A Severe Misspeak : PSA: Politics, Sports, Anything

To anyone who thought Hillary Clinton’s claim to 35 years of experience was bullshit, in general: now so are the specifics.

The centerpiece in her “I have foreign policy experience” argument lately a compelling anecdote about how she basically took on sniper fire in Bosnia back in the early 1990s when she visited there as part of a US envoy. Here’s what she has said at least two times in recent months:

“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.”

Wow, sounds dangerous. Well here’s the video of what actually took place:

As you can see, there is the First Lady casually strolling off the plane, with her teenage daughter behind her (smart idea to bring your child if you’re under severe assassination threat?), not running, not in any danger. Then she stops to talk to an eight year old girl who thanks her and the United States, and says THERE IS NOW PEACE IN THE AREA.

Ironically, it wasn’t the press who first called her out on this fantanstic exaggeration, it was Sinbad. Yes, that Sinbad. Sinbad of “Houseguest” fame (is that really his most famous movie??), the comedian no one has heard from in a decade came out from hiding to announce he was with Hillary Clinton on that trip and said, “the ’scariest’ part of the trip was wondering where he’d eat next. “I think the only ‘red-phone’ moment was: ‘Do we eat here or at the next place.’”

Now that’s comedy. Even Clinton thought so, reminding reporters he is “a comedian” and then side stepping questions about Sinbad’s conflicting recollections. But then the video surfaced.

Clinton had to admit that she made the memory up to serve political purposes and dropped out of the race. Oh, wait, no, that’s just what should have happened. Instead she said she “possibly misspoke.” She didn’t lie, or make up, or imagine, or concoct, or exaggerate a potentially vital experience that didn’t actually happen, she just somehow stumbled onto the wrong words.

Yeah, that’s what it looked like to me too.

She showed that the whole elaborate story about running from snipers and being on the cusp of death while representing the US when it was possibly too dangerous for the President to go himself is just a microcosm of her chances of winning the nomination: complete bullshit.

Trevor Timm is a Blast Magazine staff writer

In Politics, President 2008 Mar 25th, 2008 | No Discussion |