BTW, I see you got ‘What he did was throw his grandmother under the bus’ directly from Fox.
BTW, you couldn’t be more wrong. The only Fox channel I watch is Fox Sports Detroit, so if you said that I got my Detroit Tigers talking points from Fox Sports Detroit, you’d be correct. As it is you’ve just made yet another wrong, and quite stoopid, assumption.
BTW, I see you got ‘What he did was throw his grandmother under the bus’ directly from Fox.
Dipshit it was being called that 20 seconds after he said it. You are a moron. And you claim we’re getting stuff from Fox, and you’re linking to Salon and Huffington Post. You are a fucking moron, and more clueless than usual.
Called that by who within 20 seconds?
I didn’t realise it was used universely about his use of grandmother. Looking around online, I seem to get pointed to Fox in terms of that phrase.
His point was that he understands and identifies with white fear. Is it that he shouldn’t be making that point, that people think he’s only pretending, or that he used her specifically?
There were people liveblogging the event. After he said it, they were saying that he was throwing her under the bus. And do you really think that comparing his grandmother being afraid of an aggressive panhandler, is the comparison he want to make to his racist preacher who thinks the government created AIDS in order to reduce the population of minorities?
Ahh, but see this, according to CM, Chance Obama has made it all better with his second, third and fourth explanations of all of this. Please note, CM, that during his Racial Address To The Nation (if he’s elected, maybe he can replace the SOTU address with the RATTN), Chance Obama made it sound as if his grandmother was reacting to, dare I say, the typical black man on the street, not the overly aggressive panhandler (i.e. begger) that he described in his Holy Memoir.
What CM refuses to admit is that Chance Obama (ab)used his grandmother in an effort to compare and justify his relationship with Wright to the relationship he has (maybe “had” at this point--she’s not talking) with his grandmother. He said he’d no sooner throw out Wright than he would his grandmother which implies a close relationship.
One thing that immediately springs to mind is that in Situation A: Candidate X previously dismissed the person as intolerant, but then at a politicially opportune time, he recanted that. And then did not reject an endorsement.
Also, where you said ‘after the fact’ - I presume you’re not suggesting that it’s more acceptable/reasonable that the affiliation began AFTER the offensive comments?
I wasn’t speaking specifically to McCain, I was speaking about the Robertson/Falwell/whoever situation on the right and the Sharpton/Jackson/whoever situation on the left. There have been many politicians on both sides affiliated with so-called “religious leaders” that have said offensive things before and after the affiliation began, but I can’t think of one that compares directly to the long term personal relationship between Obama and Wright. (maybe I’m forgetting someone?)
But anyway, in the McCain case, see my answers to the questions — he did it for political reasons. I’m not saying it’s ok, I’m saying that it’s pretty clear that’s why he did it. There was no personal relationship, and there was even a negative political relationship. So, I may not like the answers, but I know why he’s doing it and can judge him accordingly.
In Obama’s case, the questions aren’t answered. If he had just come out and said “I condemn it, I condemn his behavior, there is no excuse for it. I don’t know why I stayed in the church for so long, I regret that and I am sorry”, the questions might go away.
But he didn’t do that, he made excuses and sought to explain it away… which is pefectly fine, if that’s what he wants to do, but he can’t then expect this to go away “because he said so” Not only are some of the original questions left unanswered, but his comments/speech/behavior have raised new questions that need to be answered.
Since he’s not answering them, I’m left trying to look at the whole of what he has said (both now and in the past) to see if I can discern the answers to those questions on my own.
He couldn’t do a complete condemnation because that wouldn’t explain why he kept going to the church. So I guess he choose to condemn the comments, and the attitude that is behind those comments.
I certainly think it’s fair game for candidates to be questioned on who they affiliate with, and that the person provide a response.
As to why he put him on his campaign - seems like a really bad call (it obviously was). I’m not sure why Obama didn’t think this would come up. I guess for him it’s better that it comes out now rather than in 6 months (assuming he won the nomination).
Obama had this personal relationship for 17yrs, stayed with it, said positive things about the guy, gave the guy a position on his campaign and then only after the media put a spotlight on some of the guys comments did Obama make any comment distancing himself from the man. And even at that, it took a while for him to actually address it head on.... and then he quickly changed the subject by interjecting Ferraro and his grandmother in to it, neither of whom are remotely equivalent.
In other words, instead of simply coming out and out and out condemning the guy, he weaseled around it for a few days, then gave an “all encompassing” speech that both downplayed the original offenses and changed the subject by introducing a new set of people to point fingers at.
Now, of course, a lot of people praise him for coming forward and starting this great “dialogue”, and oh how special he is… meanwhile I’m thinking “No, he’s being a typical politician, taking the negative situation and instead of just calling it what it is, he’s trying to point to me or to the black community in general or to his grandmother and saying “See? We all do it!"” Again, IMO that’ s a form of downplaying just how wrong/over the top/inexcusable Wrights behavior is.
This is why I think that in my ABC in my last post, Obama is somewhere between B and C. That can also go to your last sentence — why did he put him on the campaign? Because perhaps he is so out of touch after sitting in the man’s church for so many years that he didn’t realize how over-the-top and out of the mainstream those comments really are?
Dipshit it was being called that 20 seconds after he said it. You are a moron. And you claim we’re getting stuff from Fox, and you’re linking to Salon and Huffington Post. You are a fucking moron, and more clueless than usual.
crichton - 23 March 2008 01:39 PM
BTW, you couldn’t be more wrong. The only Fox channel I watch is Fox Sports Detroit, so if you said that I got my Detroit Tigers talking points from Fox Sports Detroit, you’d be correct. As it is you’ve just made yet another wrong, and quite stoopid, assumption.
Could the issue here be one of terminology? Perhaps CM isn’t aware of “throwing under the bus” as a saying and so when he sees it used by different people he’s assuming they got it from the same place?
Just throwing that out there.... but not under any busses ;)
In Obama case, the questions aren’t answered. If he had just come out and said “I condemn it, I condemn his behavior, there is no excuse for it. I don’t know why I stayed in the church for so long, I regret that and I am sorry”, the questions might go away.
But he didn’t do that, he made excuses and sought to explain it away… which is pefectly fine, if that’s what he wants to do, but he can’t then expect this to go away “because he said so” Not only are some of the original questions left unanswered, but his comments/speech/behavior have raised new questions that need to be answered.
Since he’s not answering them, I’m left trying to look at the whole of what he has said (both now and in the past) to see if I can discern the answers to those questions on my own.
Such as: “Does Obama have the integrity and good judgement to make a good POTUS?”
To me, even disregarding that CottonCandyObama has no real qualifications to be POTUS, this serves as a disqualification, in that he used extremely poor judgement here. I understand why he started at that church when he was younger. He was young and had no reputation to work from, and needed the networking opportunities that it would provide. A little foresight though, would have led him to distance himself from it after it had served its purpose. Instead, he remained there under the RightRacistUnReverened Wright, maintaining a close relationship with him, indeed, claiming him as his spiritual guide and mentor. To now claim he was unaware of just how racist and loony the guy was is bullshit, and any unbiased, thinking person realizes that. In his sermons, he made comments such as “God**** America!”, and that we basically we got what we deserved on 9/11, and that our own government created AIDS as a way to kill off blacks. The only way such comments as those didn’t cause a widespread stink at the time they were uttered was because they were no surprise to anybody that heard them. Indeed, such comments were to be expected from the RightRacistUnReverened Wright. If CottonCandyObama was unaware of the specific
outrageous comments of the RightRacistUnReverened Wright at the times he uttered them, there’s no way he can credibly claim he was surprised when he later heard about them. They were utterly in keeping with the man’s history and character.
So, CottonCandyObama demonstrated poor judgement in keeping the RightRacistUnReverened Wright as a mentor, and even put him on his campaign staff as an adviser. Then he demonstrated his dishonesty in claiming that he was either unaware of the specific comments or that he was unaware of just how racist and loony the RightRacistUnReverened Wright was/is.
IF when this all came out, CottonCandyObama had immediately disavowed the RightRacistUnReverened Wright (threw him under the bus :-)> ), it would never gained much traction as a scandal and the issue would have quickly died. Did CottonCandyObama show some good judgement and do that? No. If he had, some of his more racist supporters might have gotten pissed, but they would have continued to support him anyway. The vast majority of those who are supporting him simply to prove to others (and themselves) that they personally aren’t racist would have pointed to his disavowal of the RightRacistUnReverened Wright as proof that CottonCandyObama was a non-racist man of integrity that would do the right thing no matter the risk or how personally painful it was. Instead, CottonCandyObama demonstrated a lack of both judgement and integrity, and has lost the support of many who were supporting him just to be politically correct.
So, “Does Obama have the integrity and good judgement to make a good POTUS?”. Demonstrably, no, he doesn’t.
I think that fact that Chance Obama would refer to his white grandmother as “a typical white person” is enough evidence of Wright’s influence and impact on Obama’s thinking. No reasonable person can hear that statement and not take offense to it, no matter what demographic the words are directed at. Any follow-up attempts to explain it away are just damage control.
I think that fact that Chance Obama would refer to his white grandmother as “a typical white person” is enough evidence of Wright’s influence and impact on Obama’s thinking. No reasonable person can hear that statement and not take offense to it, no matter what demographic the words are directed at. Any follow-up attempts to explain it away are just damage control.
Yep. Hell, today its considered racially derogatory to address blacks as a group as ‘you people’, yet there are folk who will try to explain away “typical white person” as not stereotyping. That’s bullshit and everyone knows it. To say otherwise is to be disingeous.
* I get the feeling I’d have to be a conservative white American to make sense of this.
American, perhaps… but white and conservative? I’m not so sure about that…
Has anyone posted this survey yet? (link is to a pdf)
I’ll direct CM’s attention to this question, and I even added some red boxes ;)
Apparently it’s not just “white conservatives” who are concerned about this issue, and it’s not just “white conservatives” who weren’t fawning over Obama’s speech.
The whole situaion touches a nerve, and the divisions on different sides of the issue are not as black & white (no pun intended) as some may think (including Obama himself)
(I’ll address more stuff tomorrow - but just briefly on reflection I agree that ‘typical white person’ was a dangerous and potentially very damaging thing to say. Even if he meant ‘a non-racist white person’, that requires an assumption to be made. It’s entirely reasonable for someone to interpret it in the same way as ‘those people’ (when talking about blacks). So I certainly can’t and won’t argue against that.)
One is a casual political relationship, the other is a personal relationship. One is a person known to be offensive affiliating with a candidate after the fact, the other is someone we know of because of his affiliation with the candidate that turns out to be fond of spouting offensive crap.
Situation A: Person known for making offensive comments endorses Candidate X. There is no known relationship between the two.
Situation B: Person Candidate Y has a long history with and who Candidate Y calls a mentor and looks up to turns out to be someone who makes all sorts of offensive comments. Candidate Y attended this man’s church for 17yrs.
In addition to the amendments I made to this in a previous post, it’s the attitude of the candidate to the offensive person that would seem to be the key. And yet in this case we have comments from McCain which suggest that he has no problem with the attitude of certain religious nuts.
“I am very honored today to have one of the truly great leaders in America, a moral compass, a spiritual guide…thank you for your leadership and your guidance. I am very grateful you are here.”
Sounds like a wholesale endorsement to me. Sounds like McCain thinks very highly of this person. He could have easily added ‘mentor’ there and it would not have seemed out of place. A ‘moral compass’ suggest that he believes the guy truly knows right from wrong. Thanking someone for their guidance suggests that that guidance is of high value.
And he ACTIVELY sought his endorsement, along with a collection of other similar people.
Of course, IMO, that makes it worse not better.
It makes it worse to actively chase someone’s endorsement (and praise them to the point where you are making it obvious that you have no problem with their attitude, or to turn around 180 degrees and decide that someone wasn’t an ‘agent of intolerance’ after all). That seem to me to be far far more cynical.
And as I say, do we have evidence that Wright was saying the HIV type stuff 15 years ago? When Obama was married by him? When his kids were baptised?
Is the preacher the only reason to stay in a certain church, or remain in one? Or are there usually other facets to it?
Dipshit it was being called that 20 seconds after he said it. You are a moron. And you claim we’re getting stuff from Fox, and you’re linking to Salon and Huffington Post. You are a fucking moron, and more clueless than usual.
crichton - 23 March 2008 01:39 PM
BTW, you couldn’t be more wrong. The only Fox channel I watch is Fox Sports Detroit, so if you said that I got my Detroit Tigers talking points from Fox Sports Detroit, you’d be correct. As it is you’ve just made yet another wrong, and quite stoopid, assumption.
Could the issue here be one of terminology? Perhaps CM isn’t aware of “throwing under the bus” as a saying and so when he sees it used by different people he’s assuming they got it from the same place?
Just throwing that out there.... but not under any busses ;)
Ahh, but see this, according to CM, Chance Obama has made it all better with his second, third and fourth explanations of all of this. Please note, CM, that during his Racial Address To The Nation (if he’s elected, maybe he can replace the SOTU address with the RATTN), Chance Obama made it sound as if his grandmother was reacting to, dare I say, the typical black man on the street, not the overly aggressive panhandler (i.e. begger) that he described in his Holy Memoir.
What CM refuses to admit is that Chance Obama (ab)used his grandmother in an effort to compare and justify his relationship with Wright to the relationship he has (maybe “had” at this point--she’s not talking) with his grandmother. He said he’d no sooner throw out Wright than he would his grandmother which implies a close relationship.
As I say, maybe this will ensure no candidate ever risks talking about race relations again.
I’m not so sure that he abused his grandma. He implied that despite all the different attitudes to white people in his ‘family’ (which includes the Reverend, and his grandmother), they are still his ‘family’, and he won’t disown them for it. Because the Reverend seems to be at one end of the spectrum, he picked someone/something at the other end, in order to infer that there was a spectrum.
That was my initial impression anyway. That was how I took it.
I wasn’t speaking specifically to McCain, I was speaking about the Robertson/Falwell/whoever situation on the right and the Sharpton/Jackson/whoever situation on the left. There have been many politicians on both sides affiliated with so-called “religious leaders” that have said offensive things before and after the affiliation began, but I can’t think of one that compares directly to the long term personal relationship between Obama and Wright. (maybe I’m forgetting someone?)
I do see what you mean. Personally, given the words/praise used by political figures on the right to those people, I have no reason to believe they share any fewer of their ideas/attitudes than Obama does of Wright. It all seems like ‘guilt by association’ to me, regardless of how deep the personal relationship is.
In Obama’s case, the questions aren’t answered. If he had just come out and said “I condemn it, I condemn his behavior, there is no excuse for it. I don’t know why I stayed in the church for so long, I regret that and I am sorry”, the questions might go away.
I don’t think so, at all. Then it would be a big discussion about his decision-making in relation to staying for so long and not knowing why. Will this mean he’ll do things as President and not know why? People would also assume he was lying. But, as he said himself, that would certainly be the easiest thing for him to do (and the best thing politicially). He states that it wouldn’t be accurate or reflect the truth though.
But he didn’t do that, he made excuses and sought to explain it away… which is pefectly fine, if that’s what he wants to do, but he can’t then expect this to go away “because he said so” Not only are some of the original questions left unanswered, but his comments/speech/behavior have raised new questions that need to be answered.
His attempt to explain the situation, as opposed to take the easy lying way out, is now what people are calling ‘excuses’.
I guess he’s relying on the people that matter understanding him. And he’s not able to help those that don’t.
Obama had this personal relationship for 17yrs, stayed with it, said positive things about the guy, gave the guy a position on his campaign and then only after the media put a spotlight on some of the guys comments did Obama make any comment distancing himself from the man. And even at that, it took a while for him to actually address it head on....
All true. There are legitimate questions there.
and then he quickly changed the subject by interjecting Ferraro and his grandmother in to it, neither of whom are remotely equivalent.
It was a pretty far-reaching speech. I’m not sure how discussing those aspects was ‘changing the subject’. The subject was race relations.
In other words, instead of simply coming out and out and out condemning the guy, he weaseled around it for a few days, then gave an “all encompassing” speech that both downplayed the original offenses and changed the subject by introducing a new set of people to point fingers at.
Downplayed the original offenses? His speech used some strong language to show that he disgreed with the statements. And then he attempted to explain how he saw the background to comments like those.
Yep, he clearly doesn’t want the finger solely pointed at him on race attitudes. No question about that.
Now, of course, a lot of people praise him for coming forward and starting this great “dialogue”, and oh how special he is… meanwhile I’m thinking “No, he’s being a typical politician, taking the negative situation and instead of just calling it what it is, he’s trying to point to me or to the black community in general or to his grandmother and saying “See? We all do it!"” Again, IMO that’ s a form of downplaying just how wrong/over the top/inexcusable Wrights behavior is.
I can see how you took it like that and your reaction was perfectly understandably. As I said, I took it a different way.
This is why I think that in my ABC in my last post, Obama is somewhere between B and C. That can also go to your last sentence — why did he put him on the campaign? Because perhaps he is so out of touch after sitting in the man’s church for so many years that he didn’t realize how over-the-top and out of the mainstream those comments really are?
Yeah, I read about that gallup one… I think there was another one that suggested he went slightly down, but within the margin of error (which I think the gallup one was as well?)
Just glancing at that article (no time right now to read thru, sorry), looks like the question was “was it a good speech”, not “Did it change your opinion of him” I didn’t see a link to the poll itself.
Glancing at the CBS one, it looks like there were rave reviews of the speech itself, but the majority of people were left unchanged by it (i.e. neither more or less likely to vote for him) I don’t find that particularly surprising, isn’t that Obama’s strong point? No one denys that he’s charismatic and a good speaker. I’m curious to see what the specific questions/responses are, I’ll try to look at them later.
CM - 24 March 2008 04:20 PM
Is the preacher the only reason to stay in a certain church, or remain in one? Or are there usually other facets to it?
In my experience, the pastors set the tone. I know of people who have stayed in a church they weren’t satisfied with because of, say, a good childrens program, but if you were to ask them about the preaching, they’d tell you they didn’t like it. And in some cases, I’ve known of parents who go to one church and their kids to another, or parents who don’t go at all but send the kids to sunday school — because the childrens/youth program is good, but they aren’t particularly interested in the message coming from the pulpit. I don’t know, though, how many of those were strong theological-type disagreements, I think they were more of a “style” not suiting someone’s taste (i.e. it’s not sometihng they feel particularly ministers to them, but they’ll stay because it’s good for the kids… if there is a huge moral/theological problem with the leadership of the church, though, I can’t picture them wanting their kids there)
When my family had problems with church, at least the ones I can remember, it wasn’t one particular preacher, but more an attitude overall that the church was headed toward (a change in doctrine) In 2 examples I can think of off the top of my head, it manifested itself in the guest speakers that the leaders thought important/appropriate to bring in — the church that was once good for us was changing to a direction that we didn’t believe we should go. In another example, it was a case of a doctrine of the church that only became more evident the longer we stayed — I don’t know that the church necessarily changed so much as we became more aware of what their real message was.... of course, there was in that case also a change in the head pastor, so that could have been what made the problems more evident/less ignorable.
Generally speaking, when faced with one or two comments once in a while that one of us found iffy, it was just a matter of talking about it/sorting it out amongst ourselves, but when it became commonplace either from the pastors or from guest speakers, we left.
So, you can make of that what you will. But I will say that the odds of having a head pastor who is that strongly outspoken not have his message work its way down through the lower levels of power in a church seem fairly low to me. The only time I can think of where perhaps you couldn’t judge by the head pastor was when his personality was such that he was letting other people run the church. I can’t picture someone like Rev. Wright letting that happen, though. (Oh, and the pastor in that case was not the one doing the nutty things, he was the normal one)
Also, something my mom reminded me of when we were talking about this the other day— never underestimate the ability of a preacher to find a way to bring up a topic that he/she wants to talk about regardless of what the initial context of the sermon is.
We used to joke about this one preacher at a church we went to that got on this “Christmas and Easter are pagan holidays that we shouldn’t celebrate” kick. She managed to find a way to work that in to every single freaking message she preached! It was almost comical. Me and my sister (who were like 12&15;at the time) used to jokingly bet how long it would take her to bring it up each week… and seemingly without fail, there it was. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t particularly christmas or easter time, it didn’t matter what the message was about… it always seemed to come up.
So, anyway, I’m not saying that happened with Wright, but I just thought I’d throw it out there — if he felt just that strongly about black people being held down by the man, I wouldn’t be surprised if he found some way to work it in to every message he preached.
CM - 24 March 2008 04:46 PM
It was a pretty far-reaching speech. I’m not sure how discussing those aspects was ‘changing the subject’. The subject was race relations.
You’ve just hit the nail right on the head and I’m not even sure you know it! ;)
The subject of his speech was race relations, perhaps… but was that really the source of the controversy he was supposed to be addressing?
The real issue was Obama’s long-term relationship with a pastor who we find out spouts bigoted and conspiratorial whackjob statements on Sunday morning to the cheers, Amen’s and Hallelujah’s of his congregation.
When the issue arose, Obama responded by first giving a few lame denials/excuses and then gave a speech about “race relations.”
That’s kinda my whole point — he was diverting attention away from the issue of his relationship with Wright/Trinity and attempting to downplay it by generalizing the issue. In his speech, he makes it seem like “Hey, we all have people in our lives who say things we don’t agree with, right?”. This is what I mean by downplaying. You know what Barack? No, I actually don’t know anyone who spouts off things like “The white man created HIV to kill poor black people” any more than I know anyone who says “Them black folk is a bunch of savages, we should put them on a boat and send them back to Africa!” I mean, I’ve heard of people saying those things, Im fully aware that they do exist out there somewhere, but I have no close friends, mentors or even family members who say anything remotely as ignorant or bigoted as that.
Again, this points to either Obama a) intentionally trying to change the subject/downplay or b) Obama being out of touch and truly not seeing what it was that was so offensive/wrong/racist/bigoted/ignorant about Wrights actions.
(ok, ignore spelling/grammar errors, I have to go ;))
It makes it worse to actively chase someone’s endorsement (and praise them to the point where you are making it obvious that you have no problem with their attitude, or to turn around 180 degrees and decide that someone wasn’t an ‘agent of intolerance’ after all). That seem to me to be far far more cynical.
Cynical, perhaps.... but what it also is is transparent. Again, I have no comments on the for/against McCain and whether his actions are acceptable. I know his actions, I know what they are, he’s a weasel trying to get votes.
Obama’s motives aren’t so clear....
And again, there’s the difference between the personal and (opportunistic) political relationship.
Actions speak louder than words. McCains actions scream “political ploy.” Ok, fine, he uses positive words in a speech — talk is cheap. Did McCain mean that? I don’t know, what does the evidence say? There isn’t any evidence of personal relationship that I know of, just one word one day and other words another. I don’t know that I can draw anything from his comments other than that he’ll say whatever (which I already kinda knew about him)
Obama’s relationship was long-going and personal. Now, sure, this could have also just been political opportunism, but I can only look at the evidence that I have… and that evidence points to a long-going personal, private relationship between Obama/his family and Wright/Trinity.
About the difference, let me put it this way, I can sit here and refer to you as my bestest friend EVAR and say all kinds of nice stuff about you (a person I don’t even know).... does that mean that a person reading here can then compare my connection to you with someone elses connection to a person they’ve known for nearly 20yrs?
But anyway, you still seem to be trying to somehow prove some point to me about McCain but I don’t really care right now. I’m not in this thread to talk about McCain, I’m here to talk about Obama.
Obama’s relationship was long-going and personal. Now, sure, this could have also just been political opportunism, but I can only look at the evidence that I have… and that evidence points to a long-going personal, private relationship between Obama/his family and Wright/Trinity.
You don’t have any friends that say crazy stuff that you disagree with?
I’m gonna say something that will make some heads assplode, but I don’t even think his comments are that offensive if taken in context. There, I said it.
You don’t have any friends that say crazy stuff that you disagree with?
I know people I disagee with, people I disagree strongly with, but no, I don’t have anyone I am that close to who says anything like that. It’s a matter of degree.
Here, I’ll just quote from my post above the one you quoted.
blahduck - 24 March 2008 08:16 PM
In his speech, he makes it seem like “Hey, we all have people in our lives who say things we don’t agree with, right?”. This is what I mean by downplaying. You know what Barack? No, I actually don’t know anyone who spouts off things like “The white man created HIV to kill poor black people” any more than I know anyone who says “Them black folk is a bunch of savages, we should put them on a boat and send them back to Africa!” I mean, I’ve heard of people saying those things, Im fully aware that they do exist out there somewhere, but I have no close friends, mentors or even family members who say anything remotely as ignorant or bigoted as that.
Furthermore, if there was anyone I was close to who started saying things like that, it wouldn’t be long before I was no longer that close to them.
Let’s see if this gets as much play as Obama’s little “miscue”:
WASHINGTON - Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign said she “misspoke” last week when saying she had landed under sniper fire during a trip to Bosnia as first lady in March 1996. She later characterized the episode as a “misstatement” and a “minor blip.”
The Obama campaign suggested the statement was a deliberate exaggeration by Clinton, who often cites the goodwill trip with her daughter and several celebrities as an example of her foreign policy experience.
During a speech last Monday on Iraq, she said of the Bosnia trip: “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.”According to an Associated Press story at the time, Clinton was placed under no extraordinary risks on the trip. And one of her companions, comedian Sinbad, told The Washington Post he has no recollection either of the threat or reality of gunfire.
And the damage control (i.e. probably more lying) begins:
When asked Monday about the New York senator’s remarks about the trip, Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson pointed to Clinton’s written account of it in her book, “Living History,” in which she described a shortened welcoming ceremony at Tuzla Air Base, Bosnia-Herzegovina.
“Due to reports of snipers in the hills around the airstrip, we were forced to cut short an event on the tarmac with local children, though we did have time to meet them and their teachers and to learn how hard they had worked during the war to continue classes in any safe spot they could find,” Clinton wrote.
“That is what she wrote in her book,” Wolfson said. “That is what she has said many, many times and on one occasion she mis
