Hillary Clinton described a trip to Bosnia 12 years ago, saying that when they landed, they were under sniper fire and had to run with their heads down. News footage of the event shows Hillary and Chelsea walking around, meeting people, kissing a little girl, and so forth.
Confronted with the footage, she says she misspoke.
“I say a lot of things – millions of words a day – so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement,” she said.
Two million words in 24 hours is an average of 23 words per second. Since she’s doing that much talking, I guess there are bound to be a few errors in there - no indication Hillary tends to exaggerate.
“Misspoke”??? :rolleyes: If someone really ran under sniper fire, they’d remember. And if it didn’t happen, there’s no way they would have thought it happened, unless they were insane.
p.s. – They had video footage on the news tonight of the procession at the airport. There is no f*&ing way anyone could possibly describe any of it as sniper fire. Chelsea was at her side and they were sauntering along happily with a bunch of other people.
Why bullshit about something that’s so easily checked? It just seems like an odd choice. (And it wasn’t just a figure of speech; she didn’t just say “We flew into a very dangerous environment”; she specifically said that they were under sniper fire, that there was no greeting ceremony, that they had to run to the cars.)
Looks like she is taking lessons from husband Bill.
“…that was just a misstatement”, she says.
“…I didn’t inhale”, he said.
Different situations, but the same intent, as far as I’m concerned. He’s showing her how to convincingly lie, then how to slip out of it when called on it.
On “Hardball” last night one of Chris’s guests quoted Hillary as saying that somebody had determined the trip was too dangerous for the President himself to go. The guest expressed surprise that the way they dealt with a trip too dangerous for Bill was to send his wife and only child instead.
Did anyone forget we are talking about politicians here? It amazes me how surprised every one gets over these things. That goes for any of the candidates. They forget things - sometimes on purpose (like Obama with his Rezko real estate deal) or just because they never really knew it (like McCain with the Al Queda from Iran). Conversely, they remember things that did not happen (like Hillary with Bosnia).
They are politicians, people! Remember that you can tell when they are lying - it’s when their lips move!
I was thinking about that on my way to work. I think politicians are going to have to get used to extensive, internet-based fact checking, especially in a national campaign. Drudge, Snopes, and YouTube clips like the one I linked to above.
(They’ll still lie, though, because people are stupid.)
Assuming an 18-hour waking day, fully occupied by speaking, with, say, 10% of the time set aside for inhaling, two million words (the lowest number that can charitably be called ‘millions’) per day comes out somewhere around 35 words per second.
Speaking 35 words per second while dodging bullets? I’m impressed.
Maybe it’s all to do with the height the bullets were flying overhead at - isn’t he quite a bit taller than them? Clearly the risk is much larger for a taller person.
Saying she misspoke was bullshit. The comments were scripted for her, so she was reading them. What a stupid thing for her to do, in both cases. It must be painful to have so many bulletholes in one’s feet.
If I happen to be in the market to recruit snipers, I’ll probably have to look elsewhere than Bosnia - if they’re defeated by the target simply ducking his/her head and trotting, they need to sharpen their skills.
Maybe she’s lived through so many countless incidents of running across tarmac under sniper fire that she can’t properly recall when she was being shot at and when she wasn’t?
