Does anyone seriously believe that Clinton’s thought was “Eh, four dead American guys. Guys from my department. Ah, hell, who gives a shit?”
I mean… really? It’s so over the top that it falls apart immediately. It’s the sort of scare quote that just leaves you thinking “Well, that had to be taken out of context.” I can’t imagine anyone giving that quote plausibility aside from the already converted. It’s a quote that, at best, exists to make a certain type of person feel better about what they already decided.
Sure there are. Some people think Bill Clinton is a drug dealer and a murderer. They just don’t deserve to be taken seriously, and there’s not much point in arguing with them beyond making the basic facts available to people who might actually look at them. I am hoping IceQube isn’t part of that group, but the OP is an awful misrepresentation of what Secretary Clinton said.
It’s a variation of the Big Lie (tell a lie so outrageous that nobody will think anyone would make up a lie that big so they’ll believe it must be true). It’s the Shitload of Lies. Just start telling lies and keep telling lies. It doesn’t matter if most of them don’t get believed. Tell enough lies and people will start believing some of them.
Logically it makes no sense. If you tell somebody a hundred lies, they should assume the hundred and first thing you claim is another lie. You should become less credible the more lies you tell.
But people’s minds don’t think logically. Somehow if we hear a hundred lies, we start to assume there must be some kernel of truth behind all the lies.
I’m not seeing where it is implied that she meant “what difference does it make what the administration said in the early aftermath of the incident”. Is there more to the quote than was given in this thread? Or was it implied from the question that was asked?
I just remember hearing Hilary say this and thinking, don’t ever say “what difference does it make” right after talking about people being killed. I’m more than willing to accept that its being interpreted wrongly, but it was not a smart thing to say. As our chief diplomat, I would expect her to be especially good at being, well, diplomatic.
n.b: I think the whole Benghazi-gate thing is GOP manufactured outrage. But if we’re talking about whether or not she misspoke, then I think she did.
She was responding specifically to a question (well, “question”) about the early Administration talking points:
Her response was a little muddled, but I think its pretty clear the “it” in “what does it matter” was how the Administration phrased its initial talking points on the attack. Also note it wasn’t just that question, that was the last of a very long line of basically the same question asked over and over again about said talking points, giving the impression that, at least to the GOP Senators, those talking points really were “what mattered”, regarding the attack.
Its not the most artfully worded response. But its kind of unrealistic that even the most diplomatic diplomat is going to be able to word every extemporaneous statement in a way that can’t be misread if wilfully taken out of context. Especially in a case like this one, where Hillary basically had to answer the same question multiple times, from multiple Senators.
The question was about what “the American people were told within days of the attack.”
But even without the question the context is pretty clear because of her next sentence reiterating that we should find the cause. So whatever you think the first line says, it doesn’t make sense to read it as saying we shouldn’t investigate the actual cause.
I understand your point about being a diplomat and choosing words carefully, but I don’t think she is at fault for those who are interpreting it wrongly.
I think there’s an important principle being illustrated here.
Let’s say I’m advocating for some position. My guiding principle is going to be to encourage people to learn about the issue. I feel that the more people learn about the issue, the more they will come into agreement with what I’m saying.
But the OP illustrates the opposite principle. Here was a situation where somebody looked at the big picture and then trimmed it down so that what was left fit the point they wanted to make.
And it’s not an uncommon phenomena. It’s part of the “we present, you decide” mentality. There are people who are essentially telling their viewers “Here’s what you need to know. Don’t go looking anywhere else. More knowledge would just lead you astray.”
I think it goes back to the religious people who argue that all truth can be found exclusively in a holy book or holy person and that everything else should be rejected as a lie. But I don’t see how that’s possible. How can a universal God be found only inside a Bible or a Koran? You should be able to find a universal God anywhere you look in the world. If God is the ultimate truth then any line of investigation should end up finding him at its end. If you forbid people from following some paths of investigation, you’re conceding you have doubts.
"With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. *Were we uncertain in the early hours *if it was because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night decided to go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again.
Instead, she said “was it because of” which implies that it very much should matter which it was.
So yeah, she misspoke, but let’s not pretend that what she said was clear. It was not. And she was obviously rattled (or pretending to be) by the question. Another thing that our chief diplomat should not have happen to her.
She wasn’t rattled- from what I recall, she had been playing extra nice for several days and chose that moment to show her teeth. And from what I recall, it worked- the media coverage showed her in a very positive light, and her interrogators as bullies who finally got bit back (and deserved it).
I guess it depends on your perspective. I saw her as rattled and defensive. And while I’m not a huge Hillary fan (I’d really like to see some other Dem run rather than her), I’d most likely vote for her over the GOP rival if she got the Democratic nomination.
So, I would say the “media coverage” didn’t show her in any particular light unless you are talking about the pro/anti Hillary media that is always trying to spin the news one way or the other.
This is why I don’t watch the pollitical news. Whatever the politicians say, what will be reported is soundbites that may or may not be in context, and may or may not be accurate representations of their true positions.
Much easier to ignore everything until election day, then just vote for the Democrat, whoever that turns out to be.
