~Eric Blair
I know this is old news now, but I think it's ominous and disturbing enough to merit a few words anyway. By "it," I mean Hillary Clinton's debunked account of her trip to Bosnia 12 years ago; specifically, her claim that her entourage came under gunfire shortly after landing at the airport. I won't bother quoting; I'll let her speak for herself:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=TKe2rBbG
Within hours of making this outrageous claim, which should have struck anyone with a brain as spurious simply on the grounds that the Secret Service probably doesn't allow First Ladies into combat zones, everyone knew the truth, that there was no "sniper fire," that Clinton in fact was welcomed with a brief ceremony, and even received a poem from a little Bosnian girl, right on the tarmac. Once the video of the event in question surfaced on YouTube, reporters pounced, and asked her how her story could be squared with the facts. Her response: She misspoke. She didn't remember correctly.
Now, I've never come under gunfire in my life. The closest thing I've experienced is being shot at with paintballs, and even that was frightening enough that I remember it quite vividly, seven years later. So I think it's safe to assume that dodging real bullets leaves a very strong impression on one's memory, especially for a civilian with no military or police training. No doubt pretty much everyone familiar with this story has already come to this conclusion on their own. It's simply impossible to believe that someone could misremember such an experience and truly believe their false memory, unless that person is mentally ill, in the clinical sense.
So which is it, a horrendous lie or dementia? I choose to believe the former. Faced with the prospect of losing out to an upstart senator from Illinois named Obama, Clinton's doing everything she can to highlight her superior "experience." Having watched the video a few times now, I can't help but see this as completely premeditated, just one of the gritty anecdotes that a battle-tested old hand like Hillary can toss off with studied nonchalance as proof that she's been around the block, and the world, during her long "experience" in public life. Except for the truth part, that is.
But that a politician named Clinton could tell a lie to further his or her political career hardly comes as a shocker. The real story is the reaction to the lie. Obama supporters, many of them liberal Democrats who voted for Bill Clinton in the 90s and (until recently) tacitly accepted the Hillary succession, are outraged, and rightly so. That anger has been building for months -- witness the reaction to Bill's race-baiting after he insinuated that Obama only won South Carolina because he's black, that he's just another Jesse Jackson -- but this latest gaffe has really opened the floodgates. For the first time in literally decades, Democratic voters have a viable presidential candidate who's not a Clinton, and many of them want to see the aggregated Bill/Hillary scandals and baggage banished to political oblivion so that they can get on with electing an infinitely more palatable, honest candidate.
Meanwhile, Jay Leno, et al, must have been delighted that such a can't-miss joke landed in their lap. The sheer absurdity of the lie has a comedic dimension, and plenty of people are laughing. Such unambiguously ludicrous claims don't come along very often, and when they do, they invite plenty of ridicule.
But I'm not laughing. Of course it's anathema to Obama voters, and of course it's absurd; both reactions miss the point. Here we have a serious contender for the highest office in the land who apparently thinks she can say anything she wants, regardless of its veracity, and then dismiss it as "misspeaking" when she gets caught. And she's not some lunatic, fringe candidate; though behind by a hundred-some delegates, Hillary is still alive. With convincing wins in the remaining primaries, she could conceivably cajole or browbeat enough super delegates into voting for her to capture the nomination. She still has literally millions of supporters, people who apparently aren't troubled by her naked disdain for the truth. So the question I've been asking myself all week is: What are these people thinking?
Just watch the video. Watch Hillary's adviser try to explain away the lie; watch the guy from Politico hem and haw about whether this was a lie or not; watch Chelsea outright defend the lie. Just what exactly is going on here? If Hillary went on TV and announced that two plus two equals five, would any of these people admit she's a liar? To her legions of voters and supporters, what would actually give them pause, make them change their vote? After all, they have a perfectly good candidate who espouses the same basic positions as Hillary, and he's much more likely to win the election in November. They have an out, a very good one, but they're not exercising it. Watch one of her campaign rallies and see how enthusiastic her backers remain. I see it, and my mind hits a brick wall.
Lest I sound completely naive, I do realize that politicians play fast and loose with the truth as a matter of course. I imagine there're some honest politicians somewhere in this country, people who've been elected to office without compromising their integrity, but I can't name one offhand. So I'm not suddenly shocked and appalled that Hillary LIED about something. What does shock me is the brutal honesty with which she admitted to having lied ("I misspoke") and then, in the same breath, announced that doing so is acceptable ("It proves I'm human"). Evidently she regards objective reality as a concept to be dispensed with when doing so suits her purposes. And evidently a lot of people don't disagree with her.
Am I the only one who finds this frightening?
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