Just yesterday in North Carolina, Sen. Barack Obama told a large crowd that he has always been opposed to the war since it began. The facts and quotes, however, tell a different story. Watch:
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Clinton Lie Kills Her Credibility on Trade Policy
What is the proper word for the claim by Hillary Clinton and the more factually disinclined supporters of her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination -- made in speeches, briefings and interviews (including one by this reporter with the candidate) -- that she has always been a critic of the North American Free Trade Agreement?
Now that we know from the 11,000 pages of Clinton White House documents released this week that former First Lady was an ardent advocate for NAFTA; now that we know she held at least five meetings to strategize about how to win congressional approval of the deal; now that we know she was in the thick of the manuevering to block the efforts of labor, farm, environmental and human rights groups to get a better agreement. Now that we know all of this, how should we assess the claim that Hillary's heart has always beaten to a fair-trade rhythm?
Now that we know from official records of her time as First Lady that Clinton was the featured speaker at a closed-door session where 120 women opinion leaders were hectored to pressure their congressional representatives to approve NAFTA; now that we know from ABC News reporting on the session that "her remarks were totally pro-NAFTA" and that "there was no equivocation for her support for NAFTA at the time;" now that we have these details confirmed, what should we make of Clinton's campaign claim that she was never comfortable with the militant free-trade agenda that has cost the United States hundreds of thousands of union jobs, that has idled entire industries, that has saddled this country with record trade deficits, undermined the security of working families in the US and abroad, and has forced Mexican farmers off their land into an economic refugee status that ultimately forces them to cross the Rio Grande River in search of work?
As she campaigns now, Clinton says, "I have been a critic of NAFTA from the very beginning."
But the White House records confirm that this is not true.
Her statement is, to be precise, a lie.
When it comes to the essential test of the trade debate, Clinton has been identified as a liar -- a put-in-boldface-type "L-I-A-R" liar.
Those of us who covered the 1993 NAFTA debate have frequently expressed doubts about the former First Lady's recent statements. We never heard anything at the time about her dissenting from the Clinton Administration line on trade policy. And we knew that she had defended NAFTA in the years following its enactment. But fairness required that we at least entertain that notion--promoted by the lamentable David Gergen, himself a champion of free-trade policies while working in the Clinton White House--that Hillary Clinton had been a behind-the-scenes critic. We had to at least consider the possibility that, at the very least, Clinton had been worried that advancing NAFTA would trip up her advocacy for health care reform, that she had made her concerns known and that she had absented herself from pro-NAFTA lobbying.
This was certainly the impression that Clinton and her supporters sought to create as she campaigned in Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana--states where worried workers want to know exactly where the candidates have stood and currently stand with regard to trade issues.
But that impression was a deliberate deception.
And we must all now recognize that when Hillary Clinton speaks about trade policy, she begins with a lie so blatant--that she's been "a critic of NAFTA from the very beginning"--that everything else she says must be viewed as suspect.
It appears that anonymous has more of a credibility problem than Senator Clinton on trade policy. Anonymous fails to disclose that everyone who backed NAFTA or free trade had some reservations. This was discussed in the debates between Bush I, Clinton and third party candidate Ross Perot. How ever everyone with the exception of Perot believed the pluses outweighed the negatives and congress and Past Presidents supported NAFTA. Both Clinton's recognize there are some short comings and Senator Clinton has pledged to act on them. Calling Clinton a Liar reveals a lot about your self. Your are one of the neocon's who believe in an Ideology that is anti Clinton. That says it all.
What Clinton has problems with is the truth. Telling the truth seems to be a foreign idea of the neocons. Her lies are starting to catch up to her though. Here's another whopper from the Washington Post.
Sniper Fire, and Holes In Clinton's Recollection
Saturday, March 22, 2008; Page A05
Hillary Clinton has been regaling supporters on the campaign trail with hair-raising tales of a trip she made to Bosnia in March 1996. In her retelling, she was sent to places that her husband, President Bill Clinton, could not go because they were "too dangerous." When her account was challenged by one of her traveling companions, the comedian Sinbad, she upped the ante and injected even more drama into the story. In a speech earlier this week, she talked about "landing under sniper fire" and running for safety with "our heads down."
There are numerous problems with Clinton's version of events.
THE FACTS
As a reporter who visited Bosnia soon after the December 1995 Dayton peace agreement, I can attest that the physical risks were minimal during this period, particularly at a heavily fortified U.S. air base, such as Tuzla. Contrary to the claims of Hillary Clinton and former Army secretary Togo West, Bosnia was not "too dangerous" a place for President Clinton to visit in early 1996. In fact, the first Clinton to visit the Tuzla Air Base was not Hillary, but Bill, on Jan. 13, 1996.
Had Hillary Clinton's plane come "under sniper fire" in March 1996, we would certainly have heard about it long before now. Numerous reporters, including The Washington Post's John Pomfret, covered her trip. A review of nearly 100 news accounts of her visit shows that not a single newspaper or television station reported any security threat to the first lady. "As a former AP wire-service hack, I can safely say that it would have been in my lead had anything like that happened," Pomfret said.
According to Pomfret, the Tuzla airport was "one of the safest places in Bosnia" in March 1996 and "firmly under the control" of the 1st Armored Division.
Far from running to an airport building with their heads down, Clinton and her party were greeted on the tarmac by smiling U.S. and Bosnian officials. An 8-year-old Muslim girl, Emina Bicakcic, read a poem in English. An Associated Press photograph of the greeting ceremony, below, shows a smiling Clinton bending down to receive a kiss.
"There is peace now," Emina told Clinton, according to Pomfret's report in The Post the next day, "because Mr. Clinton signed it. All this peace. I love it."
The first lady's schedule, released on Wednesday by the National Archives, confirms that she arrived in Tuzla at 8:45 a.m. and was greeted by various dignitaries, including Emina (whose name has mysteriously been redacted from the document). Footage from CBS shows Clinton walking calmly out of the back of the C-17 military transport plane that brought her from Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
Among the U.S. officials on hand to greet Clinton at the airport was Maj. Gen. William Nash, the commander of U.S. troops in Bosnia. Nash told me he was unaware of any security threat to Clinton during her eight-hour stay in Tuzla. He said, however, that Clinton had a "busy schedule" and may have got the impression that she was being hurried.
Sinbad, who provided entertainment on the trip along with singer Sheryl Crow, said the "scariest" part was deciding where to eat. As he told Mary Ann Akers of washingtonpost.com, "I think the only 'red phone' moment was 'Do we eat here or at the next place?' " He questioned the premise behind the Clinton version of events. "What kind of president would say 'Hey, man, I can't go 'cause I might get shot, so I'm going to send my wife. Oh, and take a guitar player and a comedian with you'?"
Replying to Sinbad earlier this week, Clinton dismissed him as "a comedian." Her campaign referred me to Togo West, who was also on the trip and is a staunch Clinton supporter. West could not remember "sniper fire" himself but said there was no reason to doubt the first lady's version of events. "Everybody's perceptions are different," he told me.
Clinton made no mention of "sniper fire" in her autobiography "Living History," published in 2003, although she did say there were "reports of snipers" in the hills around the airport.
THE PINOCCHIO TEST
Clinton's tale of landing at the Tuzla airport "under sniper fire" and then running for cover is simply not credible. Photographs and video of the arrival ceremony, combined with contemporaneous news reports, tell a very different story. Four Pinocchios.
3 comments :
Clinton Lie Kills Her Credibility on Trade Policy
What is the proper word for the claim by Hillary Clinton and the more factually disinclined supporters of her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination -- made in speeches, briefings and interviews (including one by this reporter with the candidate) -- that she has always been a critic of the North American Free Trade Agreement?
Now that we know from the 11,000 pages of Clinton White House documents released this week that former First Lady was an ardent advocate for NAFTA; now that we know she held at least five meetings to strategize about how to win congressional approval of the deal; now that we know she was in the thick of the manuevering to block the efforts of labor, farm, environmental and human rights groups to get a better agreement. Now that we know all of this, how should we assess the claim that Hillary's heart has always beaten to a fair-trade rhythm?
Now that we know from official records of her time as First Lady that Clinton was the featured speaker at a closed-door session where 120 women opinion leaders were hectored to pressure their congressional representatives to approve NAFTA; now that we know from ABC News reporting on the session that "her remarks were totally pro-NAFTA" and that "there was no equivocation for her support for NAFTA at the time;" now that we have these details confirmed, what should we make of Clinton's campaign claim that she was never comfortable with the militant free-trade agenda that has cost the United States hundreds of thousands of union jobs, that has idled entire industries, that has saddled this country with record trade deficits, undermined the security of working families in the US and abroad, and has forced Mexican farmers off their land into an economic refugee status that ultimately forces them to cross the Rio Grande River in search of work?
As she campaigns now, Clinton says, "I have been a critic of NAFTA from the very beginning."
But the White House records confirm that this is not true.
Her statement is, to be precise, a lie.
When it comes to the essential test of the trade debate, Clinton has been identified as a liar -- a put-in-boldface-type "L-I-A-R" liar.
Those of us who covered the 1993 NAFTA debate have frequently expressed doubts about the former First Lady's recent statements. We never heard anything at the time about her dissenting from the Clinton Administration line on trade policy. And we knew that she had defended NAFTA in the years following its enactment. But fairness required that we at least entertain that notion--promoted by the lamentable David Gergen, himself a champion of free-trade policies while working in the Clinton White House--that Hillary Clinton had been a behind-the-scenes critic. We had to at least consider the possibility that, at the very least, Clinton had been worried that advancing NAFTA would trip up her advocacy for health care reform, that she had made her concerns known and that she had absented herself from pro-NAFTA lobbying.
This was certainly the impression that Clinton and her supporters sought to create as she campaigned in Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana--states where worried workers want to know exactly where the candidates have stood and currently stand with regard to trade issues.
But that impression was a deliberate deception.
And we must all now recognize that when Hillary Clinton speaks about trade policy, she begins with a lie so blatant--that she's been "a critic of NAFTA from the very beginning"--that everything else she says must be viewed as suspect.
It appears that anonymous has more of a credibility problem than Senator Clinton on trade policy. Anonymous fails to disclose that everyone who backed NAFTA or free trade had some reservations. This was discussed in the debates between Bush I, Clinton and third party candidate Ross Perot. How ever everyone with the exception of Perot believed the pluses outweighed the negatives and congress and Past Presidents supported NAFTA. Both Clinton's recognize there are some short comings and Senator Clinton has pledged to act on them. Calling Clinton a Liar reveals a lot about your self. Your are one of the neocon's who believe in an Ideology that is anti Clinton. That says it all.
What Clinton has problems with is the truth. Telling the truth seems to be a foreign idea of the neocons. Her lies are starting to catch up to her though. Here's another whopper from the Washington Post.
Sniper Fire, and Holes In Clinton's Recollection
Saturday, March 22, 2008; Page A05
Hillary Clinton has been regaling supporters on the campaign trail with hair-raising tales of a trip she made to Bosnia in March 1996. In her retelling, she was sent to places that her husband, President Bill Clinton, could not go because they were "too dangerous." When her account was challenged by one of her traveling companions, the comedian Sinbad, she upped the ante and injected even more drama into the story. In a speech earlier this week, she talked about "landing under sniper fire" and running for safety with "our heads down."
There are numerous problems with Clinton's version of events.
THE FACTS
As a reporter who visited Bosnia soon after the December 1995 Dayton peace agreement, I can attest that the physical risks were minimal during this period, particularly at a heavily fortified U.S. air base, such as Tuzla. Contrary to the claims of Hillary Clinton and former Army secretary Togo West, Bosnia was not "too dangerous" a place for President Clinton to visit in early 1996. In fact, the first Clinton to visit the Tuzla Air Base was not Hillary, but Bill, on Jan. 13, 1996.
Had Hillary Clinton's plane come "under sniper fire" in March 1996, we would certainly have heard about it long before now. Numerous reporters, including The Washington Post's John Pomfret, covered her trip. A review of nearly 100 news accounts of her visit shows that not a single newspaper or television station reported any security threat to the first lady. "As a former AP wire-service hack, I can safely say that it would have been in my lead had anything like that happened," Pomfret said.
According to Pomfret, the Tuzla airport was "one of the safest places in Bosnia" in March 1996 and "firmly under the control" of the 1st Armored Division.
Far from running to an airport building with their heads down, Clinton and her party were greeted on the tarmac by smiling U.S. and Bosnian officials. An 8-year-old Muslim girl, Emina Bicakcic, read a poem in English. An Associated Press photograph of the greeting ceremony, below, shows a smiling Clinton bending down to receive a kiss.
"There is peace now," Emina told Clinton, according to Pomfret's report in The Post the next day, "because Mr. Clinton signed it. All this peace. I love it."
The first lady's schedule, released on Wednesday by the National Archives, confirms that she arrived in Tuzla at 8:45 a.m. and was greeted by various dignitaries, including Emina (whose name has mysteriously been redacted from the document). Footage from CBS shows Clinton walking calmly out of the back of the C-17 military transport plane that brought her from Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
Among the U.S. officials on hand to greet Clinton at the airport was Maj. Gen. William Nash, the commander of U.S. troops in Bosnia. Nash told me he was unaware of any security threat to Clinton during her eight-hour stay in Tuzla. He said, however, that Clinton had a "busy schedule" and may have got the impression that she was being hurried.
Sinbad, who provided entertainment on the trip along with singer Sheryl Crow, said the "scariest" part was deciding where to eat. As he told Mary Ann Akers of washingtonpost.com, "I think the only 'red phone' moment was 'Do we eat here or at the next place?' " He questioned the premise behind the Clinton version of events. "What kind of president would say 'Hey, man, I can't go 'cause I might get shot, so I'm going to send my wife. Oh, and take a guitar player and a comedian with you'?"
Replying to Sinbad earlier this week, Clinton dismissed him as "a comedian." Her campaign referred me to Togo West, who was also on the trip and is a staunch Clinton supporter. West could not remember "sniper fire" himself but said there was no reason to doubt the first lady's version of events. "Everybody's perceptions are different," he told me.
Clinton made no mention of "sniper fire" in her autobiography "Living History," published in 2003, although she did say there were "reports of snipers" in the hills around the airport.
THE PINOCCHIO TEST
Clinton's tale of landing at the Tuzla airport "under sniper fire" and then running for cover is simply not credible. Photographs and video of the arrival ceremony, combined with contemporaneous news reports, tell a very different story. Four Pinocchios.
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