Hillary speaks millions of words a day and it´s up to us to figure out which of them are true
Dan Brawner
April 02, 2008
There is something troubling about what Hillary Clinton is saying these days. But I suppose, as her husband Bill would say, that depends on what the meaning of "is" is. I´m not sure what he meant by that, except that he was trying to weasel out of telling the truth about Monica Lewinsky. And recently, on the campaign trail, when Hillary gave an example of her on-the-ground foreign policy experience, dodging sniper fire in Bosnia and it turned out to be, well, not true, she admitted she "misspoke." As I write that word, my spell checker rejects it. Even a soul-less computer knows that a lie is just a lie, no matter what you call it.
The CBS news team that filmed Hillary´s trip to Bosnia in 1996 were mystified by the description of her and her daughter Chelsea running for cover from sniper fire. The footage they shot is now on You Tube, showing the First Lady and Chelsea smiling and sauntering across the tarmac to greet a little Bosnian girl who was holding a bouquet of flowers.
As part of a USO tour to bolster troop morale, the comedian Sinbad accompanied Clinton on the trip and recalls, "I think the only ´red-phone´ moment was, ´Do we eat here or at the next place.´" He says the whole idea of sending the First Lady and Chelsea into a war zone is absurd. "What kind of a 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 along a guitar player and a comedian with you.´"
After repeating her war story a couple of times, Hillary was confronted with the CBS video. She replied, "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 it was just a misstatement."
In fact, Hillary doesn´t seem to have a lot of respect for words. She mocks Obama´s speeches about hope saying they were just words. She told voters in Philadelphia, "Solutions you can rely on–versus words you can´t."
Maybe, if you´re speaking millions of words a day, you´re not responsible for a few that go wrong. Take, for example these famous 16 words: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." This statement by president Bush during his 2003 State of the Union Address, like Hillary´s sniper story, was a complete fantasy. But it ended up having a pretty powerful effect.
War stories, like fishing stories tend to get better with each telling. And, whereas the ability to tell tall tales may be an American art form, it can be troubling in a Commander-in-Chief. Hillary explained to the press that campaigning has been exhausting and her "minor blip" shows she is only human. But it does make you wonder, when that red phone rings at three o´clock in the morning, if Hillary answers it, what words will she say?
The CBS news team that filmed Hillary´s trip to Bosnia in 1996 were mystified by the description of her and her daughter Chelsea running for cover from sniper fire. The footage they shot is now on You Tube, showing the First Lady and Chelsea smiling and sauntering across the tarmac to greet a little Bosnian girl who was holding a bouquet of flowers.
As part of a USO tour to bolster troop morale, the comedian Sinbad accompanied Clinton on the trip and recalls, "I think the only ´red-phone´ moment was, ´Do we eat here or at the next place.´" He says the whole idea of sending the First Lady and Chelsea into a war zone is absurd. "What kind of a 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 along a guitar player and a comedian with you.´"
After repeating her war story a couple of times, Hillary was confronted with the CBS video. She replied, "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 it was just a misstatement."
In fact, Hillary doesn´t seem to have a lot of respect for words. She mocks Obama´s speeches about hope saying they were just words. She told voters in Philadelphia, "Solutions you can rely on–versus words you can´t."
Maybe, if you´re speaking millions of words a day, you´re not responsible for a few that go wrong. Take, for example these famous 16 words: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." This statement by president Bush during his 2003 State of the Union Address, like Hillary´s sniper story, was a complete fantasy. But it ended up having a pretty powerful effect.
War stories, like fishing stories tend to get better with each telling. And, whereas the ability to tell tall tales may be an American art form, it can be troubling in a Commander-in-Chief. Hillary explained to the press that campaigning has been exhausting and her "minor blip" shows she is only human. But it does make you wonder, when that red phone rings at three o´clock in the morning, if Hillary answers it, what words will she say?
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