People Mag 1996, Hillary's Trip Into Bosnia "War Zone" & How Obama Broke the "Final Rule" First

[McCamy Taylor]

I wondered why no one ever looked up old articles about Hillary's Bosnian trip to see what journalists actually wrote about it at the time (not what they claim to remember now, when so many of them have a motive for coloring the truth). Since reporters never do legwork anymore, I decided to do some legwork for them. I was at the library today, and I pulled out one of those old fashioned periodical guides, the one for 1996.

Back in 1996, Bill Clinton was running for re-election, and since he was popular, the press back home had decided that they would attack Hillary instead. That means that if you go through the periodical guide for that year you come up with articles like “The Liar Business” by Buckley “Drip, Drip, Drip” Michael Isikoff, “The Case Against Hillary” for The American Spectator There are pages and pages of this stuff. You would think she was the one running for president and not her husband. Man, when Bill proposed sending her to Bosnia to help shore up U.S. support for the genocide intervention, she must have been relieved to get out on the line of fire.

Only one magazine could be bothered to take time out from the Hillary bashing to write about her trip. That was People. The library had old issues in their stacks.

But first, just to get you in the mood, here is what a cork screw landing is like, so you know how Hillary felt when she walked out onto that tarmac.

Video. Caution, do not watch if you get dizzy easily.

http://www.warrug.com/blog/?p=117

Here is a description:

http://weblog.sinteur.com/2006/10/landing-in-baghdad/

Before jumping out of your seat to complain to the pilot, consider the good news: You’ve just avoided being shot down by a missile. Welcome to Baghdad International Airport.
Hundreds of civilian aircraft take off and land at Baghdad International every week. These aren’t the friendliest of skies, however. Outside the heavily defended airfield perimeter are bands of insurgents who occasionally target civilian and military aircraft with surface-to-air missiles. To avoid being knocked out of the sky, pilots employ an old, trusted tactic: the spiral, or corkscrew, landing approach. Once the plane arrives at about 18,000 feet—still safely beyond the range of weapons like the SA-7 shoulder-fired missile—the pilot banks sharply and descends toward the runway in a slow, tight circle, like someone walking down a spiral staircase. During the spiral the crew keeps an eye out for other air traffic, and for anything coming at them from the ground. After several turns, the pilot pulls out of the rotation with careful timing, straightens out, and lands. The whole thing takes seven to 10 minutes, roughly the same as a regular approach, but it all takes place directly overhead, instead of beginning 20 miles from the runway.

You have now descended in a tight spiral which has your ears popping and your head swimming. The only thing that keeps you from throwing up is the adrenalin surge from the knowledge that you are landing in a war zone. That is the reason they told you and your daughter to come sit in the cockpit. But don’t take my word for it. Here is the official coverage for People volume 45, April 15, 1996 by Linda Kramer, one of 14 journalists who went along on that trip.

March 25, Bosnia : As our C-17 air transport prepares to land in Bosnia, the flight crew warns passengers to slip on flak vests: “We have entered the combat zone.” Armed GIs in Humvees line the landing strip. The first presidential wife to visit a war zone since Eleanor Roosevelt, Mrs. Clinton comes bearing gifts. For the troops: a 50-inch TV, a VCR, 300 videos and 2,200 phone cards with credit to call home. For Bosnian children: art supplies, toys and cases of candy. The reaction to her visit: “I don’t know about the stuff she’s into, that trouble—not Watergate, what is it?” says Capt. Jonathan Boswell of Nashville later in the day. “It doesn’t matter. It’s really exciting to have her here.”

Unexpectedly, Chelsea proves to be a star attraction several times today. GIs at each stop request photos with the First Daughter. While the First Lady tours an outpost near the badly shelled village of Markovici, Maj. Gen. William Nash, commander of U.S. forces in Bosnia, insists Chelsea chech out an M-1 tank, which he describes as a “mean killing machine.” “That was just great!” says Chelsea afterward, emerging from the belly of the M-1.
Snip

March 26, Ankara, Turkey : After surviving a war zone, the Clintons must now brave the Turkish press…

So, for those keeping count, we have one People reporter calling it a "war zone" and one CBS reporter calling it a walk in the park.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOsGo_HWP-c

The People reporter filed her story before it would impact a presidential primary, so she gets the journalistic objectivity prize. She also gets the freshest memory of anyone telling the story prize. CBS has video, so CBS gets the "we can see it with our eyes" prize, but the video is heavily edited, very brief, the sound is poor, and it is hard to prove a negative, i.e how do you prove that at no point on that tarmac Hillary ducked her head or began to run because she heard the sound of guns or mortar? Also, whether or not saying "Hello" to someone counts as a "ceremony" is a matter of opinion. It probably depends upon what kind of ceremonies you are used to.

As to the inherent level of danger in the region, John Pomfret of the Washington Post is widely cited as the authority on what was dangerous in Bosnia, presumably because he says what the press wants to hear.

However, another journalist has challenged this assertion that the area Hillary visited was "safe".

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/26/EDVJVQ9BP.DTL

Bosnia a war zone when Hillary visited in 1996
Richard Rapaport
Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Ten days before the Clinton party arrived in Tuzla, I had flown there on an Air National Guard C-130 with photographer Ed Kashi. The assignment was to write a story about Task Force Eagle, which, under Major General Bill Nash, was pacifying the Tuzla Valley and most especially de-fanging the Bosnian Serb army.
Snip
Onboard the flight from Frankfurt, Germany, we were given flak jackets to don once we had entered Bosnian airspace. There was a lively debate over whether it was better to wear the proffered helmets on our heads, or place them under our seat. Given the Bosnia Serb propensity to take potshots at planes landing and taking off from the Tuzla air base, it was agreed that the latter was a more life-enhancing strategy.

Eagle Base was a "hot" landing zone. When our plane touched down, the C-130's rear cargo door opened, and we were encouraged to sprint to the base's sandbag-reinforced terminal. The plane was unloaded and reloaded in war-zone fashion - with engines running.

The Dayton Accords may have been signed the previous December, but when we arrived in Tuzla that March, the place was still at war. If there were no actual gunfire raining down from the hills around Eagle Base, then the hills were alive with fanatics from the Bosnian Serb army. They were angry at the American intervention, well-armed and zealous enough to have considered bagging a first lady or even a second-rate comedian. Nor did the fact that Sinbad and Sheryl Crow were along with us as USO entertainers render Hillary Clinton's visit risk-less.

Early spring 1996 was a tense, defining moment in Bosnia. Serb snipers were still plying their sickening trade over the mountains in Sarajevo, and word was beginning to spread about the genocide of 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys at a village called Srebrenica. In the minds of many combatants, the Yugoslavian war was not yet finished. The tang of revenge hung in the air like the American Apache helicopters saturating the Tuzla Valley.

Along with the possibility of an attack like the mortar round that had slammed into Tuzla's marketplace the previous May, killing 71 and injuring 150, came the nonmilitary dangers inherent in a war zone. Nine days later, on April 3, the point was tragically brought home when a plane carrying U.S. Commerce Secretary Ron Brown took off from Tuzla and crashed into a mountainside killing Brown and 30 other Americans.

It is thus silly and degrading to argue about the inherent dangers of traveling to Bosnia in March 1996.

This raises an important question. Who should we believe? Richard Rapaport of San Francisco or John Pomfret of the Washington Post?

Now, Margaret Carlson told the Stone something very important about the news media's atrocity in the 2000 election. You know, "Gore is a liar."

Few journalists saw anything wrong with this double standard. In fact, some found it amusing. "You can actually disprove some of what Bush is saying if you really get in the weeds and get out your calculator, or you look at his record in Texas," Time magazine columnist Margaret Carlson told radio morning man Don Imus at the height of the campaign. "But it's really easy, and it's fun, to disprove Gore. As sport, and as our enterprise, Gore coming up with another whopper is greatly entertaining to us." “The Press v. Al Gore “ The Rolling Stone

The press just loves to do a dog pile on one candidate, "proving" that he or she is a "liar"--even if it means distorting and lying and ignoring real stories. It makes them feel powerful. It is fun. And when it can affect an election and help the candidate that promises to aid their corporate masters in achieving unlimited media mergers and and acquisitionsm it is even good for careers. There is no reason for them not to play their games. No one bothers to check them anymore, except a few stuffed shirt media accountability types that no one reads.

In my journal Reconstructing Hillary

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/McCamy%20Taylor/178

I showed that people on the left like KO blindly accepted the word of Trimble in Ireland that Hillary was no help at all in the Northern Ireland peace process even though Trimble is a right winger, a conservative. Orange. His word is as good as Karl Rove's in this matter. His more liberal counterpart, John Hume and whole bunch of Irish women have praised Hillary for the part she played in bringing peace to Northern Ireland. These are the people whom US Democrats should be listening to. These are the real Irish patriots. But their voices are ignored, because no one in the press wanted us to hear their message.

Now I have to decide whom to trust, Rapaport or Pomfret. Here is an article by Rapaport.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_richard__060705_born_on_the_sixth_of.htm

Washington DC, July 6, 2046: Today is a special day when patriotic Americans celebrate the centenary of our beloved 43rd President. It is fitting that our nation's two most important holidays, Independence Day, and George Bush's birthday, are within days of each other.

As part of this, the Bush 100th Birthday Bash, mid-21st Century Americans are invited to recall George Bush's Lincolnian ability to "fool all of the people," into believing he was an uncaring, dim, freedom-destroying, war-mongering, free-market-worshipping, Robin-Hood-in-reverse. Today, of course, we recognize that quite the opposite was true.

In 2046, as all but the most credulous now know, only through George Bush's elaborate right-wing pretense was the nation able to achieve the social justice, economic equality, universal pensions, comprehensive healthcare and environmental awareness for which he is today so celebrated. Sadly, it was only following George Bush's unfairly mocked Presidency that social scientists began to peel away the pretense under which GW so brilliantly veiled his stealthy career of left-wing activism.

(there is more)

Ok, Rapaport is a card carrying member of the liberal media. Sarcasm like that will not get him
invited to the White House.

What is Pomfret up to, besides working for the paper that gave us "The Good Lie" and which thinks that the pardon of Scooter Libby was a really great thing?

http://www.politico.com/blogs/michaelcalderone/0308/Wash_Post_editor_says_controversial_piece_was_tongueincheek.html

On the front of Sunday’s Outlook section, in the Washington Post, two articles were placed under the banner, “Women vs. Women.”

It’s the second piece, titled "We Scream, We Swoon. How Dumb Can We Get?” by Charlotte Allen that immediately fired up the blogosphere, and prompted Media Matters to get involved.

“If it insulted people, that was not the intent,” Outlook editor John Pomfret told me this morning, calling the piece “tongue-in-cheek.”

Pomfret said that Allen pitched the idea to him as a riff on women fainting at Obama rallies, and similarities with the Beatles.

Here is what Pomfret considered an "opinion piece" and "tongue-in-cheek". When you read it, keep reminding yourself that Pomfret is a hero, he is one of the good guys in the press, because he is telling the world that Hillary is a liar and that helps the campaign of Barack Obama.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/29/AR2008022903397.html

Here's Agence France-Presse reporting on a rally for Sen. Barack Obama at the University of Maryland on Feb. 11: "He did not flinch when women screamed as he was in mid-sentence, and even broke off once to answer a female's cry of 'I love you, Obama!' with a reassuring 'I love you back.' "

Quick! Lock up your White women! Obama's in town!

I can't help it, but reading about such episodes of screaming, gushing and swooning makes me wonder whether women -- I should say "we women," of course -- aren't the weaker sex after all. Or even the stupid sex, our brains permanently occluded by random emotions, psychosomatic flailings and distraction by the superficial. Women "are only children of a larger growth," wrote the 18th-century Earl of Chesterfield. Could he have been right?

snip

Take Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign. By all measures, she has run one of the worst -- and, yes, stupidest -- presidential races in recent history, marred by every stereotypical flaw of the female sex. As far as I'm concerned, she has proved that she can't debate -- viz. her televised one-on-one against Obama last Tuesday, which consisted largely of complaining that she had to answer questions first and putting the audience to sleep with minutiae about her health-coverage mandate. She has whined (via her aides) like the teacher's pet in grade school that the boys are ganging up on her when she's bested by male rivals. She has all but wept on the campaign trail, even though everyone knows that tears are the last refuge of losers. And she is tellingly dependent on her husband.

Then there's Clinton's largely female staff, often chosen for loyalty rather than, say, brains or political savvy. Clinton finally fired her daytime-soap-watching, self-styled "Latina queena" campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle, known for burning through campaign money and for her open contempt for the "white boys" in the Clinton camp. But stupidly, she did it just in time to alienate the Hispanic voters she now desperately needs to win in Texas and Ohio to have any shot at the Democratic nomination.

Oh my! I think I am going to have to call Rapaport the reliable source and Pomfret a sexist and racist sack of shit or at least in bed with the McCain campaign, because that is the only one who benefits from that awful piece above. Which means that his contribution to this:

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/03/hillarys_balkan_adventures_par.html

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.

Is just as likely to be a lie as the truth. Unless maybe no place in Bosnia was safe. Which means that it is not really a lie, just deceptive.

So there you have it. 14 reporters accompanied Hillary on that trip. I have uncovered one story that was actually sent to the presses at the time which clearly identifies it as a "war zone." We have one reporter who actually writes liberal stories who says that it was a war zone. We have a Republican propaganda spewer at the WaPo who says it wasn't a war zone. We have the plane coming in doing a cork screw maneuver which is done to evade snipers and missiles. I guess that is what lawyers would call circumstantial evidence. There is one pretty shaken up First Lady getting out of the blender onto the tarmac whose coordination and memory might have been a little bit fuzzy in those first moments (I still have not seen footage of the actual landing). We have one bit of camera footage, several seconds long with poor sound quality that does not show cringing or running or anyone being killed, but as I said before, it is hard to prove a negative. Oh, and the footage comes from CBS whose parent company Viacom is still out of compliance with federal media ownership regulations, and we all know what that lead them to do in 2004 to Ed Bradley and Dan Rather. We also have Hillary and Chelsea saying it was scary, and Sinbad saying to wasn't scary. I expect Chelsea and Sinbad have different ideas about what is scary.

And out of those facts and opinions, the Obama camp has managed to come up with this:

http://aidanmaconachyblog.blogspot.com/2008_03_01_archive.html

“When you make a false claim that’s in your prepared remarks, it’s not misspeaking, it’s misleading ... It’s part of a troubling pattern of Senator Clinton inflating her foreign policy experience."

Say what? Hillary has inflated her whole foreign policy experience based upon this?

Which leads me back to what started this whole mess. From December 2007:

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2007/12/29/hold_the_crumpets.html

Sen. Barack Obama dismissed her foreign policy experience as little more than sipping tea with potentates..."It's that experience, that understanding, not just of what world leaders I went and talked to in the ambassador's house, who I had tea with."

Now look at those words. Those very sexist words. Would he have described a man's foreign policy that way? My, wouldn't those words look great in a GOP attack ad against the then front runner Hillary in a general election? Can't you just hear McCain saying "Barack Obama said that Hillary Clinton's foreign policy amounted to little more than a tea party." The room would fill with laughter. The RNC would put out buttons with pictures of Hillary serving tea, maybe wearing a mad hatter's hat. Obama had just handed the enemy a great campaign line.

What was it that Gary Hart said was the final rule?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-hart/breaking-the-final-rule_b_90420.html

It will come as a surprise to many people that there are rules in politics. Most of those rules are unwritten and are based on common understandings, acceptable practices, and the best interest of the political party a candidate seeks to lead. One of those rules is this: Do not provide ammunition to the opposition party that can be used to destroy your party's nominee. This is a hyper-truth where the presidential contest is concerned.

By saying that only she and John McCain are qualified to lead the country, particularly in times of crisis, Hillary Clinton has broken that rule, severely damaged the Democratic candidate who may well be the party's nominee, and, perhaps most ominously, revealed the unlimited lengths to which she will go to achieve power. She has essentially said that the Democratic party deserves to lose unless it nominates her.

Ignore for a minute the fact that we know that Gary Hart did not mean for this rule to apply to Obama. Hart is like Keith Olbermann. He plays by the Scalia rules. Bush v. Gore meant that in any case involving a Bush, the Bush will win. For Hart and Olbermann, in any situation involving Obama and Hillary, Obama is always right.

But let's assume that Gary Hart was not a hypocrite and that he stood up in December and announced the Final Rule that no one but he knew about when Obama broke it. It would have gone something like this.

By saying that only he has the understanding and experience that qualifies him to lead the country and by ridiculing Hillary Clinton's foreign policy work as a series of tea socials, words with an unfortunate sexist connotation which will resonate with general election voters, Senator Obama has broken that rule, severely damaged the Democratic candidate who may well be the party's nominee, and, perhaps most ominously, revealed the unlimited lengths to which he will go to achieve power. He has essentially said that the Democratic party deserves to lose unless it nominates him.

Gary Hart will have to explain why he thought that Obama's sexist smear of Hillary's foreign policy credentials---as confirmed by Nobel Prize winner John Hume---did not warrant verbal chastisement.

In any case, since Obama did terrible damage to her chances in the general election, Hillary was forced into the defensive. From the December 2005 Washington Post story.

She said she saved Kosovar refugees by persuading Macedonia to reopen its border. And in a direct jab back at Obama, she recalled visiting Bosnia on a plane that made a tight corkscrew landing to avoid potential attacks. "Somebody said there might be sniper fire," she said, adding tartly, "I don't remember anyone offering me tea on the tarmac."

All of this is true.

The rest of the story has been changed so many times by repetition and by different people with different motives, who can tell? The People article is the closest thing I can find to an unbiased account since it was written immediately after the trip. There are at least 11 other journalists who have not spoken. I wonder why. Some of them must have published stories. I urge people who know of these to find and reprint them. Because we can not count upon the press to do its job.

[wellst0nev0ter]

1. Not Exactly A Hillary Fan Here

In fact, I despise her, but nice legwork on our kneepad media. Recc'd

[datopbanana]

2. she still lied.

[McCamy Taylor]

3. So has Obama. About stuff that counts, too. The MSM decides whom to call a "liar"

[datopbanana]

5. i don't dispute that. but it still doesnt change bosnia.

[ProSense]

22. What has he lied about? n/t

[rodeodance]

29. lets start with Wright and Rezco for starters.

[uponit7771]

32. What lies about right? He corrected the record on Rezko. Thx....

[rodeodance]

37. He still LIED (before his 'corrections")

[jbnow]

58. Lies about Wright and Rezko

Can't think of a single thing he said about Wright that was a lie. Well unless you are one of the people that "remember" him saying he never heard any controversial statements and then later he "admitted that he had.
The trouble with that is all that he denied was being there for the statements on the clips. I double checked the transcripts of all the interviews and that was what he said each time.
Now in his Huffington Post piece the day it all broke he said Wright preached the gospel of Jesus and about our obligation to love God and one another, to work on behalf of the poor, and to seek justice. I listened to many of Wright's sermons and that's what they were.
In fact I've heard several reporters say they've gone through the old sermons. Jay Carney of Time is a name I recall, he said they weren't finding anything controversial so there wouldn't be much more to the story. (Because somehow the fact that they were normal sermons is not a story)

On Rezko some things he hadn't told before, he hadn't shown all the papers and had not tracked all of the money connected to Rezko (as opposed to money from Rezko himself or his family). Is that what you mean by lying?
Did you read his interviews with the Chicago papers? He stayed as long as they had questions and so any differences between what he said earlier was asked about and the things I noted above were the only things. They asked about the difference in the total and he answered that. From the time he had first talked to them they had searched through the records for any donations from people who had been at Rezko's fundraiser even if they were people he had known separately who were supporters already. If they went to that fundraiser, they decided to return the money. They returned anyone they thought might be friends of his.
They already had access to his senate disclosre forms (that they earlier called unusually frank) and agreed to release members of his campaign finance committees to them. It isn't a man with something to hide.
Like they said he should have done that long ago and saved a lot of trouble but neither paper accused him of lying.

If you have specific lies please let me know. Thanks

[rodeodance]

115. start with he was not in the pews.

[jbnow]

126. That really isn't an answer. He said he was not

in the pew for those specific sermons. I know some right wing dude "proved" he was and some columnist printed that and then it was shown he was speaking in Florida (or somewhere like that) on that day and it was retracted.

How can someone address "start with he was not in the pews"? It makes it sound like you just want to toss accusations, not like you want any discussion.

[ProSense]

44. Be specific, what lies? n/t

[McCamy Taylor]

68. Said no favors for Rekzo then we found he wrote letter so Rekzo could get govt contract.

So now Obama is claiming it was a "favor" for the people whom Rezko would be doing business with after he got his gov't contract---even though Obama had had to defend Rekzo and Associates for doing things like failing to provide heat in the winter. Does not sound like much of a favor was done for the people whom Rekzo would be doing business with to me.

[jbnow]

125. Let's clear that up.

He did write a letter in Oct. 1998 for a project called Cottage View Terrace for senior citizens. It included an on -site Health Center and wellness clinic that neighborhood people of all ages could go to as well. For seniors there was adult day care services, home health care and social services.

OK so pretend for a minute it's not Obama, just state senator dude. Sen Dude is an elitist and knows America is aging and there is a lack of services to help seniors who need some degree of help stay out of a nursing home. So here is this coordinated set of services being offered in one place that will help the residents and the neighborhood. Let's say it was supported by many community activists and city officials and local expert big shots thought it would be good for seniors, employment for those in the area and a really good use of an empty lot.
Let's add it was being built on the concept of economically integrated communities which Sen Dude knows has been a successful model for city planning.
As Senator Dude if asked for a routine letter of support (not by Rezko)would it even be sane to say no?

Now let's talk about Rezko. Obama never defended Rekzo and Associates for doing things like failing to provide heat in the winter. He did some work in the early 90's for a Rezko related non-profit firm, not Rezko, for a total of about 5 hours as a junior lawyer. Washington Post fact check called it "categorically untrue" that he did any "slum lord" defense type work. I could get into what the bulk of his work there was but he was rarely in court.

The link doesn't work anymore but from the tribune in January the Chicago Tribune wrote:

It's easy to forget today, but in the years before 2005, Rezko enjoyed a reputation in Illinois as an up-and-coming, even enlightened entrepreneur with a strong interest in the risky low-income and affordable housing markets that relied on tax credits and other government assistance.
He also was a reliable source of campaign cash for an array of politicians from both parties.
Obama was a community organizer in the Roseland neighborhood before leaving for Harvard Law School, and on the South Side he saw firsthand a critical need for affordable housing.

OK I found this stuff a long time ago when I was researching clients. It was the most recent reports I could find on how the Cottage View Terrace project he wrote the letter for and see if it's slum like
Passed General Inspection

5/2006: Cottage View Terrace “Successfully Completed Inspection Without Finds Or Violations Of Regulations.” Rosalyn Banks-Jordan, an Associate Asset Manager for the Illinois Housing Development Authority, wrote in a cover letter to the inspection report, “Please note that this development has successfully completed the inspection without findings or violations of regulations.”

Tenants happy

2006: There Were No Tenant Complaints To IHDA About Cottage View Terrace. According to the Loan Rating Form 2006, Cottage View Terrace had No “Tenant Complants Received By IHDA” in the past year.

Safe and Clean

2006: Cottage View Terrace Received Perfect Scores For “Decent, Safe, Sanitary Housing” And Every Other “Physical” Category. According to the Loan Rating Form 2006, Cottage View Terrace received a perfect score in each of nine categories that described the physical condition of the building, including “Decent, Safe, Sanitary Housing.”

Fine management

2006: Cottage View Terrace Got “A” Ratings For Management, Physical And Market, High “B” Rating For Financial. According to the audit grades, the overall Management, Physical and Market categories got “A” ratings, including a perfect score for Physical and near perfect for Management. The Financial aspect was .12 off an “A” rating.

Not a slum. Senator Dude did good and I wish this was happening all around the country. This is so needed and as boomers age the need for such moderately priced and low income set ups like this for seniors will be urgent. So much cheaper than nursing homes and so much better for seniors, but I know that is another subject.

I don't expect to change your mind about Obama but I did put time in this for you, respectfully. I "vetted" the candidates I was considering. I always work hard to fact check stories on either candidate, looking hard for unbiased sources, facts, context. I don't defend or attack on rumors. The story as you understood it was not correct.

[LisaM]

141. He, like Clinton, said he would serve out his first Senate term.

That was clearly a lie. His ambition got in the way.

[merh]

48. Like what

did he lie about being under sniper fire?

And I keep asking Hillary fans this, what right did she have to bring her only daughter into the war zone, into that danger, if it were truly so dangerous (and not the obvious PR stunt it was) - are both parents that unconcerned about the safety of their only daughter? So she, and her husband's administration, either exaggerated the danger and/or they are horrific parents for subjecting their only daughter to that danger.

There was no sniper fire, so she is a liar.

Now we can question her parenting and bill's parenting, to endanger their only daughter in such a way.

Think about all you profess to support and then think beyond the image that you want to believe.

[McCamy Taylor]

69. You are trying to have it both ways. Hillary can not be both a liar and a bad parent.

However, it could be a war zone and the military could set up enough security to allow it to put on a USO style show---those happen all the time---to which a performer like Sheryl Crow was invited. If security was tight enough that Crow's agent felt she could go, then Chelsea could go. Keep in mind that Chelsea and Hillary are close, and Chelsea might have felt more comfortable accompanying her mom on this trip than watching her go to Bosnia on TV and worrying about her.

[merh]

85. No, it is you and the hillary campaign trying to have it both ways.

What world leader, what mother, what caring human being brings their daughter, their only daughter, the only daughter of the president, on a mission so dangerous?

None - it was a PR game, even the "script" was all about PR, if she had a plastic turkey in her hands she would have been just as convincing.

There is a huge difference between Cheryl Crow and the only child of the president, if you don't see that then you are truly do have problems with grasping reality.

And Sinbad said it was not the hairy scarey mission, so the truth is quite simple.

Either Hillary is a bad mother that endangered her only child (think the Twilight Zone movie and those poor kids that were killed) or she is just a blow hard politician that tried to use a stage PR trip and forgot that the camera doesn't lie. No snipers, not dangerous per se - just a PR moment.

As the Major General in charge of the area has said, there is no way he would allow the first lady to travel into the area if the conditions were dangerous, let alone the first lady and the president's only daughter.

SHE LIED - no snipers, not a scarey tale worth all of your posts. It is Hillary using Rovian methods.

Now tell me of those lies that you claim Obama has told. I would like to see what it is you consider to be a lie. It is obvious that fake sniper fire doesn't constitute a lie, what does?

[Missouri Blue]

117. They weren't giving gifts and candy in a sniper zone.

Nor did she pass through a sniper zone to give gifts. I would also think Chelsea would be in a different mood if there were bullet shots on the tarmac. She wouldn't be climbing through and M1 tank for fun. Also, don't you think bullets whizzing over her head would have been national news? Do you really think memories of that would fall into oblivion?

Up till that time, there had been zero Americans killed in Bosnia. We now have one dead six wounded.

I'm sorry, lying about putting your life on the line so you can win the Presidential election is pretty bad. It's a might worse than a shady deal in my mind.

[Drunken Irishman]

51. Right and the media decided to brand Obama an anti-American religious nut.

Who was an elitist. What exactly if your fucking point, McCamy? You bitch and moan about the media, yet even Bosnia-gate, a mega-Clinton lie, didn't get near the media attention as Rev. Wright, who is not running for president. :eyes:

[McCamy Taylor]

70. Obama + Wright 2.3 million Googles Hillary + Bosnia or Tuzla or Sniper 1.3 million Googles

I think both stories got way too much attention, for a nation whose number one concern is the economy. Divide and conquer is what keeps us from taking back what the corporate masters have stolen from us.

[Drunken Irishman]

72. Both stories were overplayed.

However, for two weeks straight, from early morning to night, Obama and Wright were played over and over and over again. Hillary's Bosnia trip, which actually was something SHE SAID, only managed to stay in the press for like a half-week and then kinda died out. Clinton's connection to NAFTA during the 1990s was barely mentioned and her husband's ties to Colombia ignored. But Obama talks about bitter and angry Americans and it dominates the news cycle.

I think Obama has been given a far bigger raw deal the past month in terms of the media harping on him.

[cliffordu]

60. About your OP - What kind of fucking committee do you have writing this stuff

It's kinda Illegible.

[Control-Z]

130. Trouble with

reading comprehension?

[SoonerPride]

105. Prove it.

[SoonerPride]

106. Sadly, there is videotape and other eyewitnesses who said she is a liar.

Your post only serves to remind us that she is a liar.

[OzarkDem]

110. Let's not start a precedent for either candidate

Whichever one makes it to the GE is going to hear enough GOP accusations of "he lied" / "she lied" until the public is conditioned to not believe anything the Dem candidate says.

Let's not get the public conditioned to think they're liars any sooner than necessary.

[shaniqua6392]

4. That is some excellent research.

Thanks for doing it. I know there are many here at DU who will not want to hear this though. But I really appreciate that you did this. The truth is always a good thing. I don't know why the media just can not do its' job. They have so much power that they just can not help but use it to sway the people into believing things that are not true. Democrats have always had problems with the media in the past. But it seems like they are now the heroes of the Obama supporters because they give him good press. What they don't understand is that as soon as they assist in his rise to the top, they are going to take great pleasure in smashing him down. The last thing they want is ANY Democrat in the White House.

[lastliberalintexas]

19. I like Obama and Clinton well enough

Which really means I'm a fan of neither but will vote for either in Nov. I really don't have a personal issue with either of them, they are just both too conservative for me.

Having said that, I really can't stand some of Obama's supporters. The media issue has bothered me for a long time, and I've posted time and again that Obama's supporters are going to regret the day that they gave any credence to the Pravda like "journalists" who will turn on him as soon as it suits their purpose.

You're correct- media manipulation used to be an issue which was discussed ad nauseum on this site. But now that Obama supporters have overrun this place and he is (only currently) treated with kid gloves by that same corporate media we've despised for years, it's now ok to post any right wing drivel they write, just because they're writing it about his opponent. And yet invariably, the response of at least one Obama supporter to warnings about the media is that he is too charismatic, too engaging, too intelligent to be hurt by the same media which destroyed Gore, Kerry and did its darndest to murder the Clintons in the 90s. Alrighty.

[rodeodance]

39. Yes, media bias/manipulation used to hold a sacred place here on DU--not anymore.

[Ronnie]

61. The truth used to be somewhere in the middle.

But lately, it seems to be all over the place.

[McCamy Taylor]

71. Amen. Everyone should read this post.

[leftofcool]

6. Dana Priest was discussing this on Real Time

The media had access to this article but did not use it. It was easier to use a doctored video clip and let Obama call her a liar. And then, of course there was Sinbad, the 3 time AWOL sailor who everyone thought was oh so credible

[datopbanana]

8. no one disputes it was a war zone

the problem is there was no ducking from sniper fire and the greeting ceremony was not moved.

[McCamy Taylor]

73. Yes they do dispute it was a war zone. Pomfret at the WaPo makes it sound like Disney Land.

He talks about it being totally secure. This is bullshit. No one does a cork screw landing into a totally secure area. Tuzla was as secure then as Baghdad is now.

[Asgaya Dihi]

129. What corkscrew landing?

A post a few above noted how we should be critical of the media, it would be well to keep in mind that old articles are no more proof from spin than new ones and reporters then liked to sex up a story same as now. For better headlines, for favors, for politics, for pretty much the same reasons as now. This I thought was interesting. I've run across similar clips from high level people at the base who say they had the place locked down tight and they were insulted at the idea they had let her be endangered but this one is relevant here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efN3yzVEgCo

The pilot who flew Hillary into Bosnia describes the plane, the landing, and a few other issues. It was a steep landing mostly because there were hills in the way, "no evasive maneuver", no corkscrew, no sitting on flack jackets. If a reporter who was either hyped on adrenaline or trying to sex up a story thought a corkscrew landing sounded better than what really happened then that had more to do with their misconceptions or creations than with anything the pilot who actually flew the plane knows of. Some other similar issues as well but I'll leave it at that other than to note again that the press was broken then too. Remember the coverage of Monica, Travelgate, Whitewater, etc? Making it sound interesting sold a few extra papers.

I think there's a pretty good case that she just lied. Great research on the above though, it just doesn't jive in cases with what people in a better position to know say.

[rodeodance]

30. Obama fans sucked up the Sinbad smears over and over. They must be so proud of themselves

[Hassin Bin Sober]

111. Did you notice the look on Bill Maher's face when Priest mentioned the "cork screw"

Maher had a genuine surprized look on his face as if he wasn't aware of the proceedures taken in a hostile area. I wish the conversation would have been expanded upon.

I'm no hillary fan but she has taken a bit of an unfair beating on the matter. Anyone who has been on an aircraft that executes such a proceedure is not likely to forget it - I know, I have been there. The spacial disorientation, 45 degree bank and increased "seat suck or G factor" is something not normally felt on a civilian aircraft.

When I heard the term "landed under sniper fire" that was the first thing that came to mind. That said, I understand why the campaign left it alone. As evidenced by the media's reaction and the ankle bitters on DU, it would probably come off like explaining why Gore never said he invented the internet.

[Liberal Gramma]

128. I still do not see how a corkscrew landing is conflated into ducking sniper fire

and running for cover. She didn't just say this once or twice.

[Liberal Gramma]

127. You must get a different version of Real Time than I do

I heard her say she was in a plane that did a corkscrew landing and it could be upsetting. She said nothing about the truth or non-truth of Clinton's story about landing under sniper fire. A doctored video clip? You mean that some low-life photoshopped the sniper fire out and put in the little girl with the poem? How dastardly!

[Zhade]

131. Any evidence of the video being doctored, or are you just lying like clinton?

I can't wait until you liars have to leave DU.

[bowens43]

7. Nothing in your post refutes the lie.

Hillary is liar, Shes always been a liar and she always will be a liar.

[McCamy Taylor]

74. If one lie makes a liar, then Obama and McCain are also liars, and our next president will be a liar

[earthlover]

9. Nothing in your biased selection of articles refutes Hillary is breaking the Final Rule....

Her campaign has become a kamikaze mission

[McCamy Taylor]

75. Obama broke the "Final Rule" first.

[earthlover]

95. So the hell what? Hillary was on Obama's case way back in July.....

When she called him "irresponsible and frankly naive". It really does not matter so much back in July or earlier. What I am concerned with is NOW. Hillary is doing a kamikaze mission. She has a snowball's chance in hell of winning the nomination, but she is going to go down and try to take Obama with her. That is only going to help McCain.

[lumberjack_jeff]

10. Very good research. Thanks. Rec'd.

[susankh4]

11. The "final rule" only applies when....

it is protecting the good ole' boys and their interests. We (dumb) women should know that!

And Bosnia... it's only what the man-stream media says it was. Men *do* get to have the final say, you know. Because, with us women... it could always be just the hormones talking.

[Warren Stupidity]

12. So Clinton was lying when she said she misspoke about

landing under fire? (A misspokification that she made at least four times.) She made a claim that went far beyond 'visiting a war zone'. Her claim was that she landed under sniper fire. Her claim was simply false.

[BootinUp]

13. sniper fire

is only evident when they hit the plane. Doesn't mean shots weren't fired if there wasn't a hit. The sniper fire claim was undoubtedly based on previous activity when planes were hit.

[Warren Stupidity]

15. No it was bullshit. Clinton has already admitted that.

The airport was completely secure. It does mean shots weren't fired, as there were no snipers and she did not land under sniper fire. That is now a fact not in dispute. The OP is attempting to replace 'sniper fire' with 'war zone', and then studiously documenting that in fact Bosnia was a war zone, another fact not in dispute, and then somehow making the jump from there to 'Clinton didn't lie'. She didn't lie about visiting a war zone, and nobody is claiming she did. She lied about landing under sniper fire, and she has admitted that.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

17. It doesnt mean there wasnt any sniper fire

just because nobody heard any or saw any or reacted in any way as if there were any. A lot of things happen in the world that nobody hears or sees or responds to. Unless you know about everything that happens in the world at any given moment, it's not fair to criticize somebody else for not noticing something that might not have happened, or even a lot of people. With a bunch of children shouting and reading poems, anything could happen and not be heard or seen. The world holds more things that are happening or not happening than you dream of in your philosophy, Horatio. In fact, a lot of things were happening or not happening while you were reading this that you didnt even notice.

[Warren Stupidity]

87. Ok fair enough there might have been sniper fire

that nobody saw and nobody heard despite the fact that the airport was a secure military controlled facility in a war zone. That indeed *might* have happened. So, quite by accident, and quite improbably, Clinton might have actually landed while this 'tree falling in a woods that nobody heard' sniper was taking pot shots, only she didn't know about it, nobody at the airport knew about it, and she was telling the truth when she said she misspoke about it. You might have a point there, on some level, but about the truthiness of Clinton with respect to landing under sniper fire: not so much.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

88. You forgot the part about CHILDREN READING POEMS VERY LOUD & drowning out the sniper fire.

Children have high voices and cover up the zing sounds of bullets missing. :radio:

[Warren Stupidity]

89. Ah well that explains why Clinton put her daughter in harm's way.

I always wondered about that part of her little adventure. Now it is all clear. Chelsea was there to drown out the awful sniper fire noise. It all makes sense.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

90. Thank you. Also, the snipers may have been trying to hear the poems themselves

and stopped firing for aesthetic reasons. Why do people subconsciously assume snipers don't like children's poems?

[rodeodance]

114. oh sttop with the mocking. You sound just like you learder!! It is NOT a good trait to take on!!

[A-Schwarzenegger]

116. "oh sttop with the mocking. You sound just like you learder!!"

Don't make it so easy, Howdy!

[Zhade]

133. snort

that was a good one!

[A-Schwarzenegger]

92. Also, we don't know for sure that Chelsea didn't stow away in a wheel well.

I believe it's possible Hillary didn't want her daughter to tag along but that Chelsea took initiative and stowed away in baggage or a wing.

[earthlover]

96. The problem with lies is you have to spin a web of other lies to cover the original lie....

...and others to spin the other lies. It is pathetic, absolutely pathetic, the spinning that Hillary's supporters have to tangle themselves up with....

Faced with getting caught with a lie, wouldn't it be just easier to admit it instead of spinning more?

I used to say I would support Hillary in November. Right now, I am undecided. She has to do some convincing. But that is gonna be hard. Because I know she is capable of major lies....so whatever she says to win me over will be interpreted in the light that I really can't trust that it is not yet another lie. I don't like McCain. But he is at least an honest version of Hillary.

[IowaGirl]

21. Apparently the point of landing "corkscrew" fashion is that you could be under................

sniper fire.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

45. No, the point was because it's mountainous terrain and it's how aircraft always lands there

War time or not.

[arikara]

53. I've been in many planes that landed in that fashion

many times, because of terrain and weather. It looks nothing like the horrible jumpy camera work in the video. That's what makes you feel sick, not the actual landing.

[lefty2000]

28. She landed under the threat of sniper fire

It was a poor choice of words to say "under sniper fire."

Obama does this sort of thing all the time, then he turns around and says something to the effect of "I could have phrased it better." He always gets a free pass.


What we have here is known as a "double standard."

[Zhade]

134. She said she RAN FROM SNIPERS. That lie can't be spun away.

NT!

[McCamy Taylor]

77. The cork screw landing proves that the area was under danger of fire.

That is the reason they land that way. The plane obviously did not get hit, otherwise we would have a different Senator in New York. However, the type of landing used may have been the reason it did not get hit.

Do you think that the military would subject VIP civilians like the First Lady, Chelsea, Sinbad and Sheryl Crow to the kind of landing I just demonstrated if they did not have to? Barf city.

[LaurenG]

14. I don't find this out of step with what I already felt about this.

The people that went to Bosnia with her took umbrage with her version of the story though. And the fact remains that she did lie and in my opinion, she lied deliberately about this several times.

It just made me think of bush in a flight suit, trying to make us believe he was a hero, just like she did.

Do you know how much better off we'd all be if she just didn't lie? Women need a hero and a role model, just not this one because she is a sneaky woman and a back stabber, not my kind of person.

My biggest complaint about her is she doesn't know how to relate to being human so she just makes stuff up or grabs other people's experiences. I don't understand why others can't see straight through her.

She could have been a real hero, a magnificent human being in female form but she chose instead to take the path that fed her ego rather than the truth.

[merh]

55. And don't forget, her husband has tried to make it seem like the lies

were just mistakes that are to be expected from a 60 year old after 11 pm.

[berni_mccoy]

16. OMG! A People Magazine writer is a Journalist? They would NEVER embellish a story!

Good thing we have the video truth that refutes her b.s. and witnesses to boot.

[McCamy Taylor]

79. Obama camp throws any journalist who disputes their version under the bus.

They did it to the woman who broke the story about his talk at the San Francisco fund raiser. They have vilified Paul Krugman. This is a fascist tactic that is not attractive, labeling anyone who says anything you do not like the enemy and is one of the things which is turning me off the Obama campaigns. I do not like the whole Mussolini cult of personality style thing that some of you guys seem to have going. It is undemocratic. Americans do not goose step. Knock it off.

[berni_mccoy]

100. No McCamy, I'm CRITICIZING YOU for quoting a CELEBRITY INTEREST RAG as the basis of evidence.

You're labeling me as a Nazi/Facist because of it. You've really gone too far, you've come undone.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

107. "Fascist tactic," "Mussolini cult," "goose step"!

Wow.

[JoFerret]

18. It is nothing short of SHAMEFUL

...how the Obama campaign have used sexist smear tactics to make Hillary into a demon.
All the while sitting behind the safe firewall of race.
It is amazing to me that so many democrats do not see this. Even if they prefer BO and do not like HC i am astonished they cannot see through this.
The buyers remorse may come later. but - so many will never know what they missed. After 8 years of Bush some are too young or too weary so they buy the slogans and turn away from the real hope and promise of better days.

Thanks you for this piece. Ignore the foul carping it will receive.

[rodeodance]

35. It was BHO and his MOCKING Hillary--that started this--and the sheepie followed.

......Which leads me back to what started this whole mess. From December 2007:

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2007/12/29/hold_the_crumpets.html

Sen. Barack Obama dismissed her foreign policy experience as little more than sipping tea with potentates..."It's that experience, that understanding, not just of what world leaders I went and talked to in the ambassador's house, who I had tea with."


Now look at those words. Those very sexist words. Would he have described a man's foreign policy that way? My, wouldn't those words look great in a GOP attack ad against the then front runner Hillary in a general election? Can't you just hear McCain saying "Barack Obama said that Hillary Clinton's foreign policy amounted to little more than a tea party." The room would fill with laughter. The RNC would put out buttons with pictures of Hillary serving tea, maybe wearing a mad hatter's hat. Obama had just handed the enemy a great campaign line.

[McCamy Taylor]

80. Careful not to fall for the Divide and Conquer tactics of the MSM and RNC.

Obama and Hillary both are fighting aggressively for the nomination. The mostly male Democratic elite finds ambition in a woman unattractive so they are punishing Hillary and praising Obama. This is a serious problem.

However, the more serious problem is that the corporate elite is using its old games to split the working class along artificial lines of gender, ethnicity, race in order to keep us from using our solidarity to form a movement that can shake the pillars of the institutions that keep us oppressed.

[Deep13]

20. Thank you for this.

:kick: :thumbsup:

[SIMPLYB1980]

23. Fantastic post! K&R!

:yourock:

[Bonobo]

24. I realize some people can be fooled because a post has lots of links and HTML, but...

Your post was a big waste of time in my opinion.

I suspect few people slogged through it as I did.

If they did, they would find a lot lukewarm statements backed up with the precision of deep researcher.

Your OP gives a nice impression of substance (unless read).

Thanks for the waste of time.

I want my 15 minutes of life back!

[mrreowwr_kittty]

46. Definitely 15 minutes of my life I want back. nt

[ProSense]

25. This is the most desperate piece of crap I've ever read. You should be embarrassed

Long after the facts and the excuses, you are trying to still spin the Bosnia incident as real:

Deal with reality: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com">here, http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/4/1/85359/24244/36/488126">here and here.

Hillary and Bill lie with ease!

[rodeodance]

38. I am going to send this far and wide.

[IowaGirl]

26. Thank you McCamy........

I wish more people could see your excellent research. Hillary has been treated so unfairly over this story. Everything she has done has been so belittled. Fortunately for us, she's mighty tough with an incredibly thick skin. :kick: :kick: :kick:

[rodeodance]

27. I am so sick of how this board has tried to destroy Hillary over this. There were

some who tried to put some reason into the issue but they were shouted down.

[lefty2000]

31. McCamy Casts her Pearls Before Swine

There are a lot of jerks here, but there are good people on both sides, I am sure of it. The Obama people seem worse because there are so many more of them here. If 5% of any group are jerks (that is wild-ass optimistic), a big group is going to have more jerks than a small group.

The demographics of the internet strongly favor Obama and us Hillary folks must learn to swim in a hostile ocean.

This season of idiocy will pass; it always does.

Last night I ran across an observation by H.L. Mencken: "Americans always turn a political contest into a moral crusade."

[rodeodance]

34. Yes-there are good people on both sides--but gd-p is overrun with

obama folks were are too willing to distort. lie. and twist--a story.

[Zhade]

135. She lied about running from sniper fire. The video proves she didn't.

Pointing out the truth of her lie isn't destroying anything but dishonesty.

[rodeodance]

33. I recall the Obama camp putting out a memo saying they will hit Hillary on

her foreign experience---and it started with Obama himself mocking
Hillary--!! the rest is history as BHO fans here on DU followed like
sheepie.


......Which leads me back to what started this whole mess. From December 2007:

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2007/12/29/hold_the_crumpets.html

Sen. Barack Obama dismissed her foreign policy experience as little more than sipping tea with potentates..."It's that experience, that understanding, not just of what world leaders I went and talked to in the ambassador's house, who I had tea with."


Now look at those words. Those very sexist words. Would he have described a man's foreign policy that way? My, wouldn't those words look great in a GOP attack ad against the then front runner Hillary in a general election? Can't you just hear McCain saying "Barack Obama said that Hillary Clinton's foreign policy amounted to little more than a tea party." The room would fill with laughter. The RNC would put out buttons with pictures of Hillary serving tea, maybe wearing a mad hatter's hat. Obama had just handed the enemy a great campaign line.

[rodeodance]

36. Thank you very much

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

40. Photo-ops can be damaging to one's candidacy if expanded on.

Those durn cameras sometimes take unflattering pictures, or photos that show that the candidate was lying through her teeth.

[DemGa]

41. Rec -- It must be difficult for some to look at the origin of their attacks

Barack Obama's campaign is simply an extension of the right-wing attacks of the nineties -- disgusting and shameful. Why is that some people are blind to this fact? Stunning.

[UALRBSofL]

59. McCamy thanks for all the hard work and research

It explains a lot. It helps to clear up the Ireland and Tusula issue. To show it wasn't a walk in the park the following week the senator's plane was shot down. I'll send this to a couple of folks in the media and see what comes of it. Again, thanks for the great work. :)

[tabasco]

42. Bosnia was not a war zone when Hillary went there.

A war zone is an area of active combat.

Bosnia was not an area of active combat.

Sorry, but People magazine is not an authority on military matters.

I am a combat vet and former military planner and your spin is laughable.

THIS IS A WAR ZONE:



THIS IS NOT A WAR ZONE:




Hope it helps!

[suston96]

112. Did the troops get combat pay there back then? I heard they did......I'll post a link later.....nt

[tabasco]

119. They did NOT get combat pay and were NOT authorized combat patches.

It would not have made a damn bit of difference either way.

Clinton and Chelsea were nowhere near combat and for them to claim that they were detracts from the sacrifice of real soldiers in real combat.

[suston96]

123. Sorry, you are wrong...See my later post.

"Hostile-fire zones. Military personnel who have served in a combat zone or hazardous-duty area have earned certain tax exemptions. These areas are:

— Afghanistan, designated a combat zone effective Sept. 19, 2001. The combat zone includes all of Afghanistan and the airspace above it. In addition, many service members serving in areas certified by the secretary of defense as directly supporting operations in Afghanistan qualify for combat-zone tax status if they also are drawing imminent-danger or hostile-fire pay in connection with their duties. These include Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Jordan, Yemen, Djibouti, and troops on Operation Enduring Freedom orders in the Philippines.

— The Balkans, designated a combat zone on March 24, 1999. The combat zone includes Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, the Adriatic Sea and the Ionian Sea north of the 39th Parallel.

— Bosnia, designated a qualified hazardous-duty area on Nov. 21, 1995, and treated as a combat zone as long as members qualify for imminent danger pay or hostile fire pay. The zone includes Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Macedonia."

http://www.navytimes.com/money/financial_advice/online_hbml06_payandbenefits_withholdingandtaxes/

[tabasco]

146. Combat pay does not equal combat. Btw - you link does not work.

Troops receive combat pay for routine peace-keeping duty IN WHICH NO SHOTS ARE EVER FIRED. The military is liberal about awarding "combat" pay because of the general low pay in the military. Nevertheless, troops no longer receive ""combat" pay for Bosnia. There were NO COMBAT CASUALTIES for the entire Bosnia operation to date. The only casualties were from accidents. Bosnia was never a "war zone" or "combat zone" (area of active combat) for US troops. ZERO troops were awarded combat patches for duty in Bosnia. As opposed to "combat" pay, a combat patch requires duty in an actual combat zone. Please stop embarrassing yourself with your claims that Hillary was in a combat zone. The areas Hillary visited were SAFE, which is why she was able to take her ADOLESCENT DAUGHTER along with her.

THE HILLARY SUPPORTERS DETRACT FROM THE SACRIFICES OF OUR SOLDIERS IN ACTUAL COMBAT ZONES WHEN THEY ATTEMPT TO CLAIM THAT CHELSEA CLINTON IS A COMBAT VET!!

[snooper2]

43. rofl...

I'm series...you took all the time to do this...and I can't stop :rofl:

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Oh, and that corkscrew landing video, If the guy would hold the fucking camera still it isn't that bad...

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:


GRAB THE FLAK JACKET HIL! WE ARE GOING IN HOT!!!! :rofl:

[mrreowwr_kittty]

47. Wow. I'm impressed at how much effort you put into that..

Sadly, nothing there mitigates the fact that Hillary Clinton concocted a self-aggranding fable to puff up her foreign policy cred and got nailed on it. By Sinbad. Embarassing. Really, you should just learn from Bill's experience with it and let it go.

[Hepburn]

49. What a waste of bandwidth to point out that she still lied. n/t

[SoCalDem]

54. Nice formatting, though n/t

[Hepburn]

64. LOL....

...an "A" for formatting and and "F" for content!

:rofl:

[leftstreet]

50. "I remember landing under sniper fire...

There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."



:shrug:

[high density]

52. War zone doesn't mean sniper fire at an airport

Sorry but that is the disconnect here. And by the way, Pat Nixon's trip to Saigon blows the "first wife since Roosevelt" BS. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/26/AR2008032602920.html?nav=rss_politics

[Cheap_Trick]

56. pathetic attempt

you wanna keep beating the dead donkey of Rezko? Let's look at some of Hilla(R)y's shady donors:

Among them is an Oklahoma oilman who testified in the mid-1990s that the firm he worked for, owned by Democratic fundraisers, sought to curry favor with Bill Clinton’s administration by providing payments and a golf club membership to a Cabinet secretary’s son…

Clinton includes on her list of “Hillraisers” — those who have committed to raising more than $100,000 for her White House bid — several financiers linked to past troubles. They include Marvin Rosen, the former Democratic National Committee finance chairman whose efforts to reward six-figure party donors with attendance at White House coffees and overnight stays in the Lincoln Bedroom became the focal point of Senate hearings into fundraising abuses…

William Stuart Price, the Oklahoma oilman also on the “Hillraiser” list, stunned a courtroom in 1995 when he detailed how his former gas company had tried to “gain influence” with the Clinton administration by providing $160,000 in money and membership in a ritzy Washington golf club to the son of a Cabinet secretary…

Price’s testimony became the focal point of a criminal investigation of Ron Brown, then commerce secretary and a former chairman of the Democratic Party. The inquiry ended with the conviction of Price’s former bosses, Nora and Gene Lum, for making illegal donations.

Also on the list is former senator Robert G. Torricelli (D-N.J.), who withdrew from a 2002 reelection campaign after being “severely admonished” by the Senate for taking lavish gifts from a businessman and contributor, David Chang…

“It seems like deja vu,” said Michael Madigan, a Republican lawyer who helped lead an extensive investigation into the Clinton administration’s 1996 fundraising practices by then-Sen. Fred D. Thompson (R-Tenn.). “It sounds like a carbon copy of the last Clinton campaign.” …

“The most important thing I learned about this issue is that all campaigns have the same problem, regardless of party or candidate: How do you know who has skeletons and who does not?” said Lanny Davis, who as special counsel to Bill Clinton handled campaign finance issues for him from 1996 to 1998. “Let’s face it: Campaign organizations are not ‘CSI’ — not even close — even if they’d like to be.” …

Well, if the moral ethicist (and Pakistan lobbyist) Lanny Davis says it’s okay, then it must be okay.


You wanna talk about Rev. Wright? Let's talk about Hilla(R)y's church:
from The Nation
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080331/ehrenreich

and Mother Jones
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/hillary...

>snip<
Through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the Fellowship. Her collaborations with right-wingers such as Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) grow in part from that connection. "A lot of evangelicals would see that as just cynical exploitation," says the Reverend Rob Schenck, a former leader of the militant anti-abortion group Operation Rescue who now ministers to decision makers in Washington. "I don't....there is a real good that is infected in people when they are around Jesus talk, and open Bibles, and prayer."

>snip<

Clinton's prayer group was part of the Fellowship (or "the Family"), a network of sex-segregated cells of political, business, and military leaders dedicated to "spiritual war" on behalf of Christ, many of them recruited at the Fellowship's only public event, the annual National Prayer Breakfast. (Aside from the breakfast, the group has "made a fetish of being invisible," former Republican Senator William Armstrong has said.) The Fellowship believes that the elite win power by the will of God, who uses them for his purposes. Its mission is to help the powerful understand their role in God's plan.

>snip<

The Fellowship's long-term goal is "a leadership led by God—leaders of all levels of society who direct projects as they are led by the spirit." According to the Fellowship's archives, the spirit has in the past led its members in Congress to increase U.S. support for the Duvalier regime in Haiti and the Park dictatorship in South Korea. The Fellowship's God-led men have also included General Suharto of Indonesia; Honduran general and death squad organizer Gustavo Alvarez Martinez; a Deutsche Bank official disgraced by financial ties to Hitler; and dictator Siad Barre of Somalia, plus a list of other generals and dictators. Clinton, says Schenck, has become a regular visitor to Coe's Arlington, Virginia, headquarters, a former convent where Coe provides members of Congress with sex-segregated housing and spiritual guidance.

>snip<

Throughout her time at the White House, Clinton writes in Living History, she took solace from "daily scriptures" sent to her by her Fellowship prayer cell, along with Coe's assurances that she was right where God wanted her. (Clinton's sense of divine guidance has been noted by others: Bishop Richard Wilke, who presided over the United Methodist Church of Arkansas during her years in Little Rock, told us, "If I asked Hillary, 'What does the Lord want you to do?' she would say, 'I think I'm called by the Lord to be in public service at whatever level he wants me.'")

>snip<

These days, Clinton has graduated from the political wives' group into what may be Coe's most elite cell, the weekly Senate Prayer Breakfast. Though weighted Republican, the breakfast—regularly attended by about 40 members—is a bipartisan opportunity for politicians to burnish their reputations, giving Clinton the chance to profess her faith with men such as Brownback as well as the twin terrors of Oklahoma, James Inhofe and Tom Coburn, and, until recently, former Senator George Allen (R-Va.). Democrats in the group include Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor, who told us that the separation of church and state has gone too far; Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) is also a regular.

>snip<

Clinton has championed federal funding of faith-based social services, which she embraced years before George W. Bush did; Marci Hamilton, author of God vs. the Gavel, says that the Clintons' approach to faith-based initiatives "set the stage for Bush." Clinton has also long supported the Defense of Marriage Act, a measure that has become a purity test for any candidate wishing to avoid war with the Christian right.

>snip<

Sean Hannity has called Obama's church a "cult," but that term applies far more aptly to Clinton's "Family," which is organized into "cells"--their term--and operates sex-segregated group homes for young people in northern Virginia. In 2002, Sharlet joined The Family's home for young men, forswearing sex, drugs and alcohol, and participating in endless discussions of Jesus and power. He wasn't undercover; he used his own name and admitted to being a writer. But he wasn't completely out of danger either. When he went outdoors one night to make a cell phone call, he was followed. He still gets calls from Family associates asking him to meet them in diners--alone.

>snip<

At the heart of The Family's American branch is a collection of powerful right-wing politicos, who include, or have included, Sam Brownback, Ed Meese, John Ashcroft, James Inhofe and Rick Santorum. They get to use The Family's spacious estate on the Potomac, The Cedars, which is maintained by young men in Family group homes and where meals are served by The Family's young women's group. And, at The Family's frequent prayer gatherings, they get powerful jolts of spiritual refreshment, tailored to the already powerful.

>snip<

Furthermore, The Family takes credit for some of Clinton's rightward legislative tendencies, including her support for a law guaranteeing "religious freedom" in the workplace, such as for pharmacists who refuse to fill birth control prescriptions and police officers who refuse to guard abortion clinics.

>snip<

Sharlet generously attributes Clinton's involvement to the under-appreciated depth of her religiosity, but he himself struggles to define The Family's theological underpinnings. The Family avoids the word Christian but worships Jesus, though not the Jesus who promised the earth to the "meek." They believe that, in mass societies, it's only the elites who matter, the political leaders who can build God's "dominion" on earth. Insofar as The Family has a consistent philosophy, it's all about power--cultivating it, building it and networking it together into ever-stronger units, or "cells." "We work with power where we can," Doug Coe has said, and "build new power where we can't."


You wanna talk about Obama's lies? Let's talk about Hilla(R)y's:

• She didn’t know about the FALN pardons.
• She didn’t know that her brothers were being paid to get pardons that Clinton granted.
• Taking the White House gifts was a clerical error.
• She didn’t know that her staff would fire the travel office staff after she told them to do so.
• She didn’t know that the Peter Paul fundraiser in Hollywood in 2000 cost $700,000 more than she reported it had.
• She opposed NAFTA at the time.
• She was instrumental in the Irish peace process.
• She urged Bill to intervene in Rwanda.
• She played a role in the ’90s economic recovery.
• The billing records showed up on their own.
• She thought Bill was innocent when the Monica scandal broke.
• She was always a Yankees fan.
• She had nothing to do with the New Square Hasidic pardons (after they voted for her 1,400-12 and she attended a meeting at the White House about the pardons).
• She negotiated for the release of refugees in Macedonia (who were released the day before she got there).


Time for Bushette to go home, bake some cookies, and SHUT THE FUCK UP.

[rodeodance]

57. This comment by Obama is a Sexist mockery of Hillary:

.....http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2007/12/29/hold_the_crumpets.html

Sen. Barack Obama dismissed her foreign policy experience as little more than sipping tea with potentates..."It's that experience, that understanding, not just of what world leaders I went and talked to in the ambassador's house, who I had tea with."

[AtomicKitten]

62. Sinbad outed her; at least get that point straight.

[Texas Hill Country]

63. k&r

[Emillereid]

65. The pilot said it wasn't a war zone - and we could see with our own 'lying' eyes

in the film of the event that it was a war zone and that she suffered no sniper fire. The pilot said under no circumstances would he have landed had it been dangerous. The landing he did was due to the terrain - not to avoid any sniper fire. It was a lie - pure and simple.

[McCamy Taylor]

99. People author said she was told it was "combat zone"

From a recent online Glamour interview

Glamour Washington Editor Linda Kramer Jenning was on the now-controversial 1996 trip to Bosnia with Hillary and Chelsea Clinton that I mentioned this morning. Reporting at the time for People, Linda tells me thatshe remembers a crew member announcing "We have entered the combat zone!" as the plane prepared to land at Tuzla. She says, "There was nervous joking about whether we were better off putting on the flak vests stored beneath our seats or if perhaps sitting on them would make more sense in case anybody was firing up at the plane. Always good to protect your butt. However, all was quiet when we landed.

[SoonerPride]

101. It was Hillary who told her "we're entering a war zone"

Not a member of the staff.

Hillary was drunk then too, obviously.

[nichomachus]

66. There isn't a military commander or a pilot

in his right mind who is going to put the first lady and her teenage daughter into an area where their lives are in danger.

Period.

End of story.

People can write all the nonsense they want about this, but the fact remains. It ain't - gonna - happen.

If a Navy captain bumps his ship against a civilian and kills him -- or hits another Navy ship, his career is over.

What in the world do you think happens if the first lady and/or her teenage daughter takes a bullet in the head on your watch because you put her in harm's way?

You don't need to think about this for more than 10 seconds to see that it never happened and wouldn't happen.

[Name removed]

67. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[MsMagnificent]

76. This, on 'Obama Underground'?

Just checking in after a couple months away from this place. What? They haven't chased away ALL the Hillary supporters or undecided-who-don't-want-to-listen-to-sexist-hateful-screeds yet?
I see they're still working on it, long and hard. Upon opening the first page, as usual, there is nothing to be seen but vitriolic Hillary Hate and unquestioning Obama Luv.

Funny, I thought this place was supposed to be PRO Democrats and would be more apt to be Anti Repubs. One would have thought they would have at least RESPECTED other Democrats.
Lesson learned.

However, they ain't no hate like Hillary hate! (for those who have the stomach for it)
It's a shame it's not used against, oh... John McCain or other Republicans.

All this from people who I used to believe were more prone to think for themselves rather than swill the latest flavor of Kool Aid. Sad.


What I wonder is, now that they've chased so many fellow Dem's away, what are they going to do when they need to use them, in future? All this hateful crap will be instantly forgotten? How do they plan to get them back? Well, good luck with that.


Gotta give you props for still being here and posting. Good luck with that too.

[goldcanyonaz]

78. McCamy Taylor, I nominate you for President!

:yourock:

[gcomeau]

81. We don't have to wonder about the objectivity of the written accounts...

...when we have it on video. Fascinating little exercise you just engaged in though. "Hmmm, I wonder which of these written accounts we could speculate was the most accurate description of events if we pretend we hadn't all seen it with our own two eyes...". Very entertaining.

[rodeodance]

140. you obviously did not read about the condition of that video in the OP

[SeaLyons]

82. Thanks for Posting...

Excellent.

K&R

:kick:

[WinkyDink]

83. Unfortunately, her husband suggested she misspoke due to fatigue and age.

HE needs to read this mag!

[Ysabel]

84. that corkscrew video didn't make me dizzy...

however your repeated attempts to excuse hillary clinton's lies are certainly dizzy-making...

[Missouri Blue]

86. I think I'm pretty alert to sexism, but

"Sen. Barack Obama dismissed her foreign policy experience as little more than sipping tea with potentates..."

Actually, that sound rather British to me and not sexist. Maybe it's because I'm a male who enjoys his tea. I see the point as being relaxed informality. First Lady is quite an informal role. Obama wasn't being sexist by stating the obvious with a good choice of words, and besides, whatever she contributed to the "First Lady position" she has really kept it guarded. In fact, since the office of First Lady is in itself rather sexist, how sexist can it be to point that out, now?

Nor is it sexist to point out that she accepted this sexist mantle with exemplary meekness that also characterized her time in the Senate, and in her run for presidency-- with regard to issues, not really what feminists should have in mind. I expect that if she's in the presidency, you'll see nothing but more bland meekness, with Bill taking up the slack as he has already. I wonder how long it will take for feminists to get tired of her and her husband. I think a good candidate is more important than gender accomplishment. Women now really need to pass on her-- she will dash their dreams.

Think back: after her effort to reform health care was torpedoed from the right, she definitely took advice from the likes of Carville and Morris to duck from controversy. So, I think she should be given credit for dodging bullets, because for her extended strategy for winning the presidency over these last eight years, I could sum it up as a combination of "don't rock the boat" and "keep your head down."

It might have worked for Clinton. Except Obama is the worst kind of opponent she (and her husband) personally could have ever faced.

[Straight Shooter]

91. Obama's words were intended for an American audience, not a British one.

Do you remember the slams by the right wing against Joe Wilson, that he was in Niger, sipping tea (or mint juleps) instead of being on a serious fact-finding mission?

Obama took his mocking cue from the right wing. "Sipping tea" is a derisive description in America when applied to anyone on a political mission. No offense to Brits intended.

By the way, Obama is the worst kind of opponent for anyone. And I don't mean that as a compliment.

[nichomachus]

104. I agree

Obama is the worst kind of opponent for anyone.

I agree. He's intelligent, principled, genuine, engaged -- that kind of opponent is really hell on the PR-manufactured, focus-group honed, poll-driven phonies.

[Missouri Blue]

122. That's giving him a little too much credit.

I'm certain he's informed with polls and focus groups. It's how he responds to them that's different.

[Missouri Blue]

121. Then if it was used against Joe Wilson, then how can the term be sexist?

Tell me that? Took it from the right wing? It's not as if this statement was so remote before Right Wing Nuts used it. That's what gets me. If he called her a "moonbat" than I could see where you could say "ah hah!"

As for Obama's remark, "sipping tea with potentates" means at least she was meeting the potentates. Sorry, I can't see that as sexist, or even that negative. Unless he says instead "...with the ladies" or "...with the wives of potentates." No doubt, it's the informality that's important here.

Obama is the worst kind of opponent for anyone, I don't follow your lack of compliment there, unless it's a game with the words "best" and "worst."

[Straight Shooter]

138. I don't agree the term is sexist. It is contemptuously dismissive, though.

Obama is the worst opponent because he's like Reagan, he has his throngs of adoring defenders. He can do no wrong. He is the Democrats' Reagan, but he will govern like Bill Clinton, without Clinton's innate grasp of history and politics. Think about it.

Before you toss out an insult, I'm no fan of Bill Clinton. Never have been. Don't trust a smooth talker. Ever.

[anonymous171]

93. Seriously guys, just stop trying to justify her lie.

[Lucinda]

94. Thank You

K&R

[SoonerPride]

102. It only brings up the lie again. Yes, thanks for reminding us she lied.

I'd almost forgotton.

[Lucinda]

137. LOL

Uh-huh.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

97. they will still call her names....The hate makes them feel special

[Taxmyth]

98. Excellent writing and research

I've always thought the "lie" aspect of the story is to hide the fact that Senator Clinton did indeed do more than sip tea with potentates while First Lady. Happy to K&R.

[Quixote1818]

103. People Magazine? LOL! What a rag! nt

[Major Hogwash]

108. Hillary didn't duck any sniper fire - she's a bona fide liar.

So it doesn't matter what the journalists in 1996 said about her.

That was then, this is now.

Hillary will never be President.

[OzarkDem]

109. Oh, please

Repeating the spin ad nauseum doesn't make it come true.

[AtomicKitten]

120. The video didn't lie so maybe you shouldn't either.

Just a thought. It's amusing watching the reincarnations of various rationalizations and flat-out bullshit here, so at least it's entertaining.

[Zhade]

136. It's not spin when the video the world has seen proves you wrong.

I'm going to be so glad when your proven liar of a candidate finally accepts her failure.

[Missouri Blue]

113. Are you saying that Clinton put herself in danger to give gifts?

That's even worse than lying. That should disqualify her from office due to total stupidity.

It makes no sane sense put herself (and her daughter to boot!!!!), in mortal danger in order to give the troops gifts and give out candy. Bob Hope was smart enough never to do that. I know that the soldiers in that zone wouldn't have appreciated it; she would have been one of their nightmares-- a totally, recklessly, unaware VIP in an unsecured zone, who they were responsible for protecting. Yes, it would have been such a gift, seeing the First Lady and young Chelsea getting their heads splattered by a sniper! Just the thing to cause PTSD.

She would have never been allowed out to take a trip to give gifts exposing herself to sniper fire. You don't have to do a library search on this. It wouldn't have happened. Period.

You also don't have to do "footwork" to answer this question: How many troops had killed in combat in Bosnia by 1998?

The answer: none. That's right. None!

How many have been lost since then? One. Oh, and there have been six wounded. (A bad month for Bosnia, I wish every month in Iraq were that good.) Go ahead, duff it out on Google. No need for "footwork."

Clinton isn't insane or stupid. Therefore: no snipers were shooting at Clinton, her daughter, or at any other American. None. Believing she told a lie is respecting her.

Also, there are some long-running tricks in the military regarding a combat zone. If troops are stationed in a combat zone they get combat pay. So, there's good pay incentives at every rank to declaring a place a "Combat Zone." However, if you are in a combat zone, getting extra pay, you also have to follow procedures: things like a corkscrew landing, flack jackets, and such. It isn't at all the same as what the troops call "an unsecured zone" which is where you'll have sniper fire.

You don't have to do so any footwork to prove any of this, but if you prove the opposite, as you're bent on doing, you've practically demonstrated that Clinton is dumber than a roadkill possum.

[suston96]

118. Bosnia a combat zone? Combat pay for the troops? tax exclusions?

http://www.navytimes.com/money/financial_advice/online_hbml06_payandbenefits_withholdingandtaxes/

********

— The Balkans, designated a combat zone on March 24, 1999. The combat zone includes Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, the Adriatic Sea and the Ionian Sea north of the 39th Parallel.

— Bosnia, designated a qualified hazardous-duty area on Nov. 21, 1995, and treated as a combat zone as long as members qualify for imminent danger pay or hostile fire pay. The zone includes Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Macedonia.

[suston96]

148. Combat pay link......Hope it works...DOD very strict what zone qualifies for comabt pay...

http://www.navytimes.com/money/financial_advice/online_hbml06_payandbenefits_withholdingandtaxes/

[liberaltrucker]

124. Bullshit. Nice try.

:)

[Zhade]

132. GOALPOST WARNING: CLINTON LIED ABOUT RUNNING FOR COVER UNDER SNIPER FIRE, NOT LANDING IN A WAR ZONE.

This is complete horseshit spin.

She still lied, the world has still seen the evidence that there was no sniper fire, and you cannot erase these facts.

Oh, and she's still not going to win.

[goclark]

139. Why did she remember about these articles

and why didn't her staff or Bill remember? :crazy:

[merh]

142. you have gone well past loyal supporter and are now an obsessed

fanatic that refuses to accept the truth.

SHE LIED - she admitted her version was not true, Bill blamed her false tales on her age and the late nights she keeps.

You really need to go get some support, take a walk, do something constructive rather than this obsessive support for the admitted lies about Bosnia.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exsmFDYyK4U&eurl=http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/4/16/43431/1412

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4b2utw0qnJY&feature=related

[Viking12]

143. I like this one better

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHVEDq6RVXc&feature=related

[merh]

145. See, I knew she lied

she wasn't holding that pistol properly at all. :rofl:

[backscatter712]

144. LET IT SINK!!!

[rodeodance]

147. only a sexist jerk would say something like this:

....Sen. Barack Obama dismissed her foreign policy experience as little more than sipping tea with potentates..."It's that experience, that understanding, not just of what world leaders I went and talked to in the ambassador's house, who I had tea with."