Clinton caught in Bosnia lie

[Spin Echo]

Whoops

Hillary Clinton has been regaling supporters on the campaign trail with hair-raising tales of a trip she made to Bosnia in March 1996. In her retelling, she was sent to places that her husband, President Bill Clinton, could not go because they were "too dangerous." When her account was challenged by one of her traveling companions, the comedian Sinbad, she upped the ante and injected even more drama into the story. In a speech earlier this week, she talked about "landing under sniper fire" and running for safety with "our heads down."

There are numerous problems with Clinton's version of events.

THE FACTS

As a reporter who visited Bosnia soon after the December 1995 Dayton peace agreement, I can attest that the physical risks were minimal during this period, particularly at a heavily fortified U.S. air base, such as Tuzla. Contrary to the claims of Hillary Clinton and former Army secretary Togo West, Bosnia was not "too dangerous" a place for President Clinton to visit in early 1996. In fact, the first Clinton to visit the Tuzla Air Base was not Hillary, but Bill, on Jan. 13, 1996.

Had Hillary Clinton's plane come "under sniper fire" in March 1996, we would certainly have heard about it long before now. Numerous reporters, including The Washington Post's John Pomfret, covered her trip. A review of nearly 100 news accounts of her visit shows that not a single newspaper or television station reported any security threat to the first lady. "As a former AP wire-service hack, I can safely say that it would have been in my lead had anything like that happened," Pomfret said.

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.

Far from running to an airport building with their heads down, Clinton and her party were greeted on the tarmac by smiling U.S. and Bosnian officials. An 8-year-old Muslim girl, Emina Bicakcic, read a poem in English. An Associated Press photograph of the greeting ceremony, below, shows a smiling Clinton bending down to receive a kiss.

"There is peace now," Emina told Clinton, according to Pomfret's report in The Post the next day, "because Mr. Clinton signed it. All this peace. I love it."

The first lady's schedule, released on Wednesday by the National Archives, confirms that she arrived in Tuzla at 8:45 a.m. and was greeted by various dignitaries, including Emina (whose name has mysteriously been redacted from the document). Footage from CBS shows Clinton walking calmly out of the back of the C-17 military transport plane that brought her from Ramstein Air Base in Germany.

Among the U.S. officials on hand to greet Clinton at the airport was Maj. Gen. William Nash, the commander of U.S. troops in Bosnia. Nash told me he was unaware of any security threat to Clinton during her eight-hour stay in Tuzla. He said, however, that Clinton had a "busy schedule" and may have got the impression that she was being hurried.

Sinbad, who provided entertainment on the trip along with singer Sheryl Crow, said the "scariest" part was deciding where to eat. As he told Mary Ann Akers of washingtonpost.com, "I think the only 'red phone' moment was 'Do we eat here or at the next place?' " He questioned the premise behind the Clinton version of events. "What kind of president would say 'Hey, man, I can't go 'cause I might get shot, so I'm going to send my wife. Oh, and take a guitar player and a comedian with you'?"

Replying to Sinbad earlier this week, Clinton dismissed him as "a comedian." Her campaign referred me to Togo West, who was also on the trip and is a staunch Clinton supporter. West could not remember "sniper fire" himself but said there was no reason to doubt the first lady's version of events. "Everybody's perceptions are different," he told me.

Clinton made no mention of "sniper fire" in her autobiography "Living History," published in 2003, although she did say there were "reports of snipers" in the hills around the airport.

THE PINOCCHIO TEST

Clinton's tale of landing at the Tuzla airport "under sniper fire" and then running for cover is simply not credible. Photographs and video of the arrival ceremony, combined with contemporaneous news reports, tell a very different story. Four Pinocchios.

ONE PINOCCHIO: Some shading of the facts. TWO PINOCCHIOS: Significant omissions or exaggerations. THREE PINOCCHIOS: Significant factual errors. FOUR PINOCCHIOS: Real whoppers. THE GEPPETTO CHECK MARK: Statements and claims contain the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

It makes you wonder why she bothered to make up the bit about the sniper fire. It's not as if having dealt with sniper fire makes you any more competent in foreign policy.

[Flagg]

Oh it gets much better than that! There's video!

[Mr Bean]

Lets review
1. Claimed to be under "sniper fire"
2. Claimed this as part of her foreign policy experience
3. Claimed this as justification for her call center job answering colored phones

Which makes the fact she was not in any danger, she brought celebrities along with her oh and she was on video... oh that's just great. How in any way shape or form did she think she was going to get away with this?

[Superman]

I'd like to see the media print about when politicians actually tell the truth. That would be a much larger story.

[Flagg]

Lets review
1. Claimed to be under "sniper fire"
2. Claimed this as part of her foreign policy experience
3. Claimed this as justification for her call center job answering colored phones

Which makes the fact she was not in any danger, she brought celebrities along with her oh and she was on video... oh that's just great. How in any way shape or form did she think she was going to get away with this?

But see, if you analyze it further it gets so much worse.

Basically, she is stating that the following is true if we are to believe her story (which no one with a brain would at this point, but I digress):

1) Her husband is a total asshole that would send his wife and daughter to places not secure enough for him to visit personally knowing full well that they could be killed.

2) Both Bill and Hillary Clinton are such horrible parents that they would allow their teenage daughter to be put in a deadly situation for what is effectively a PR stunt.

3) Hillary Clinton shows a total lack of judgment as far as the safety of her teenage daughter is concerned by allowing her to leave the secure aircraft to run to a vehicle under threat of sniper fire.

[Vympel]

I'm surprised in this day and age they thought they could get away with telling outrageous fibs like this. They must've thought they would be treated like Republicans.

[Coyote]

Don't you see? Clearly, Mrs. Clinton ran to shield that poor little girl with her own body! She's a hero! You all must hate women.

Seriously, the Clintons do not seem to comprehend the "Internet". It's beyond their comprehension how Bill Clinton can make a nasty remark in one area and have it spin beyond their control by the next morning...

...maybe they should have asked Al Gore for advice?

[CaptainChewbacca]

I think a thread was posted a few weeks ago where Sinbad refuted her story, because he was on the trip as a celebrity.

[Glocksman]

I think a thread was posted a few weeks ago where Sinbad refuted her story, because he was on the trip as a celebrity.

It's in the news again because she retold and embellished the story with the bit about being under actual sniper fire.
IIRC, prior to this story she just claimed there was a lot of danger involved.

What kind of president would say 'Hey, man, I can't go 'cause I might get shot, so I'm going to send my wife. Oh, and take a guitar player and a comedian with you'?

Is fucking priceless.
Though he should have said 'send my wife and daughter.'

[Kodiak]

this is my favorite part:

West could not remember "sniper fire" himself but said there was no reason to doubt the first lady's version of events. "Everybody's perceptions are different," he told me.

He couldn't "remember" sniper fire? Perhaps working in the Clinton campaign is so dangerous as to make memories of dodging sniper fire in bosnia a fond and forgettable memory? WTF is this "Everybody's perceptions are different" bullshit? Either she was dodging sniper fire, or she wasn't. It's possible, however, that she thought she was under fire, in which case she's just a moron. Every time hildabeest opens her mouth I want to crowbar an infant just to make things better.

[Patrick Degan]

My my. Hillary becomes more Nixonian every day.

Though I doubt even Tricky Dick would have made up stories about being under sniper fire.

[Darth Wong]

So, in 2004 Kerry claims to be a genuine war hero and can back that up, and his campaign is virtually destroyed by a false allegation about the lack of real danger to him.

Meanwhile, Clinton is a tourist who claims to have been under fire and can't back that up, yet her campaign seems to be unaffected by true allegations about the lack of real danger to her.

WTF?

[Coyote]

I think it's funny that Hillary can't seem to figure out why Bill kept sending her to places where it was "too dangerous for him to go" and where death was looming over her constantly.

[Illuminatus Primus]

So, in 2004 Kerry claims to be a genuine war hero and can back that up, and his campaign is virtually destroyed by a false allegation about the lack of real danger to him.

Meanwhile, Clinton is a tourist who claims to have been under fire and can't back that up, yet her campaign seems to be unaffected by true allegations about the lack of real danger to her.

WTF?

If you owned all cable and broadcast news, who would you rather see win of our choices? Pick 2 of 3.

[Elfdart]

So, in 2004 Kerry claims to be a genuine war hero and can back that up, and his campaign is virtually destroyed by a false allegation about the lack of real danger to him.

Meanwhile, Clinton is a tourist who claims to have been under fire and can't back that up, yet her campaign seems to be unaffected by true allegations about the lack of real danger to her.

WTF?

It's a textbook example of the BIG LIE: lies are counterintuitive, so the bigger the lie, the more likely people are to believe it. That's why it's easier to accuse John Kerry of faking his injuries and not earning his medals than it is for Larry Craig to say he was asking the guy in the other stall if he could borrow the Sports section to read on the shitter. The lies about Kerry were so absurd that it overloaded the bullshit detectors. People started thinking "Nobody could make up something so outrageous, so there must be some truth to it". People have heard Craig's excuse (or something like it) many times before, along with "the check is in the mail", "the dog ate my homework", and "that's not lipstick on my collar, it's ketchup".

Hillary has the hack media talking like a bunch of trained parrots about how she has more experience in foreign policy when she did little more than attend Sinbad and Sheryl Crow concerts.

[Elfdart]

I think it's funny that Hillary can't seem to figure out why Bill kept sending her to places where it was "too dangerous for him to go" and where death was looming over her constantly.

Maybe he really did love Monica Lewinsky and wanted to get rid of the old ball-and-chain, like David did with Uriah.

[Patrick Degan]

So, in 2004 Kerry claims to be a genuine war hero and can back that up, and his campaign is virtually destroyed by a false allegation about the lack of real danger to him.

Meanwhile, Clinton is a tourist who claims to have been under fire and can't back that up, yet her campaign seems to be unaffected by true allegations about the lack of real danger to her.

WTF?

It's a textbook example of the BIG LIE: lies are counterintuitive, so the bigger the lie, the more likely people are to believe it. That's why it's easier to accuse John Kerry of faking his injuries and not earning his medals than it is for Larry Craig to say he was asking the guy in the other stall if he could borrow the Sports section to read on the shitter. The lies about Kerry were so absurd that it overloaded the bullshit detectors. People started thinking "Nobody could make up something so outrageous, so there must be some truth to it".

It didn't help matters that Kerry essentially let a whole goddamned month go by, silently taking it up the ass from the Swiftboaters, instead of actually calling them on their bullshit or putting up any sort of fight.

[Glocksman]

Guys, Hillary simply misspoke

The Clinton campaign says Senator Hillary Clinton may have “misspoke” recently when she said she had to evade sniper fire when she was visiting Bosnia in 1996 as first lady.

She has been using the episode as an example of her foreign policy bona fides.

“I certainly do remember that trip to Bosnia,” she said last week. “There was a saying around the White House that if a place was too small, too poor, or too dangerous, the president couldn’t go, so send the First Lady.

“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.”

But her account has been challenged, first by Sinbad, the comedian, who traveled with her, and then by news organizations, most notably the Washington Post, which awarded her four “Pinnochios” which it gives for major “whoppers.”

A number of videos have been posted to YouTube juxtaposing a CBS news report with Mrs. Clinton’s statements last week:

(video links not reposted)

Asked today to square her recent descriptions with these accounts, Howard Wolfson, her spokesman, referred to several contemporaneous news accounts that described the region as hostile. He then added: “It is possible in the most recent instance in which she discussed this that she misspoke in regard to the exit from the plane, but there is no question if you look at contemporaneous accounts that she was going to a potential combat zone, that she was on the front lines.”

Asked at a later point in the call to clarify his comment, Mr. Wolfson said that news accounts at the time made clear that the area in which she was landing was “a potential combat zone and was hazardous.”

He said that in her memoir, “Living History,” she wrote about sniper fire in the hills and “clearly meant to say that” when she brought it up last week. He said she had described the event many times the same way and that “in one instance she said it slightly differently.”

A third reporter then asked about it, prompting Mr. Howard to read the relevant passage from her book, in which she wrote: “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.” He repeated that this was the one time in which she misspoke.

But this formulation was at least the second time in recent weeks that she described the sniper fire. She mentioned it on Feb. 29 in Waco, Tex., when she was rolling out her “red phone” commercial, recalling the trip to Bosnia and saying that the welcoming ceremony “had to be moved inside because of sniper fire.”

Thank God Hillary didn't lie.
Otherwise my faith in her would simply be shattered

[Lettuce]

They just covered this on the CBS news. It was something along the lines of "She lied and we know, because we were with her and filmed it."
The video of her arrival is pretty funny since it's so much different than her current account of the events.

[Elfdart]

The video is much better when set to the proper score!

[Sidewinder]

The biggest irony is that a sniper DID shoot at the Clintons-- while they were in the White House.

Man Charged With Trying To Assassinate The President

By DAVID JOHNSTON,
Published: November 18, 1994

A Federal grand jury today returned an 11-count felony indictment charging the man accused of firing a semiautomatic assault rifle at the White House with attempting to murder President Clinton.

Later, at a hearing in Federal court, a lawyer for the man, Francisco M. Duran of Colorado Springs, entered a plea of not guilty to all charges. If Mr. Duran, 26, is convicted of attempting to assassinate the President, he will face a maximum penalty of life in prison.

At the hearing, Federal prosecutors asked Judge Charles R. Richey of United States District Court to order the defense to declare immediately whether Mr. Duran will assert an insanity defense. Judge Richey gave defense lawyers until Monday to respond.

At the hearing, lawyers for The Washington Post, NBC and The New York Times asked Judge Richey to make public a letter by Mr. Duran that prosecutors used to request a mental competency exam of the defendant. A psychiatrist found Mr. Duran capable of understanding the charges against him.

The judge said he would decide later whether to make the letter public, after A. J. Kramer, the chief public defender here, said the letter did not refer directly to an assassination attempt against President Clinton, but suggested its contents related to Mr. Duran's mental state at the time of the shooting incident.

At a news conference, Eric H. Holder Jr., the United States Attorney here, said he was disturbed that a number of people, whom he did not identify, had information about Mr. Duran's intentions before the shooting but failed to notify authorities until after the incident.

"This is unacceptable," he said, apparently referring to acquaintances of Mr. Duran in Colorado who have said he told them he planned to "take out" Mr. Clinton. "When any American has solid information that a person intends to harm any elected official, that American has a civic and moral duty come forward with that information before a tragedy occurs."

In the indictment, Mr. Duran, a dishonorably discharged Army medic, was also charged with four counts of assault on a Federal officer, two counts of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, destruction of Federal property, use of a firearm in a crime of violence and interstate transportation of a firearm. Each offense carries a maximum penalty of from 5 to 10 years in prison.

Videotapes and the accounts of witnesses to the shooting indicated that Mr. Duran stood on a sidewalk on the Pennsylvania Avenue side of the White House on Oct. 29. He pulled a rifle from his coat and opened fire through the fence that surrounds the mansion. Several bullets struck walls and windows. Mr. Clinton was in the family quarters in the residence but was never in danger.

At the time, Secret Service officials said they did not consider the incident to be an assassination attempt. But as evidence mounted of Mr. Duran's apparent intention to harm the President, including papers found in his pickup truck at the scene, Federal prosecutors decided to add the more serious charge.

For an American politician, staying in the US of A is more dangerous than going to Bosnia!

[mingo]

this is my favorite part:

West could not remember "sniper fire" himself but said there was no reason to doubt the first lady's version of events. "Everybody's perceptions are different," he told me.

He couldn't "remember" sniper fire? Perhaps working in the Clinton campaign is so dangerous as to make memories of dodging sniper fire in bosnia a fond and forgettable memory? WTF is this "Everybody's perceptions are different" bullshit? Either she was dodging sniper fire, or she wasn't. It's possible, however, that she thought she was under fire, in which case she's just a moron. Every time hildabeest opens her mouth I want to crowbar an infant just to make things better.

I've Been shot at, (or near anyway) by careless hunters twice, and trust me I remember each time VIVIDLY.

[Max]

So what? Obama has “misspoken” at least 10 times that I can think of (and so has McCain).

[Shroom Man 777]

What did Obama "misspoke"?

Did Fox News catch him slipping into ebonics?

Or did he misspeak with his body language? See, I heard him misspeak with the way he stood and gesticulate, in an audio file. Man. It was like he was craving to pork a white woman with his black man meat. With his misspoken body language. Between his legs. (His penis)

He will break Hillery's water.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I think the best part of this story is that it was SINBAD who broke it open (not really, but it seemed that way). That's just awesome.