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Cracker Squire

THE MUSINGS OF A TRADITIONAL SOUTHERN DEMOCRAT

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Location: Douglas, Coffee Co., The Other Georgia, United States

Sid in his law office where he sits when meeting with clients. Observant eyes will notice the statuette of one of Sid's favorite Democrats.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

She is challenged; she ups the ante; video appears; "I say a lot of things - millions of words a day - so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement"

A link entitled "Hillary Under Fire for Not Coming Under Fire" to the earlier embellishment and the "I misspoke."
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In a Saturday 3-22-08 post entitled "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 comedian with you,'" I wrote:

Remember the Harrison Ford movie Air Force One where Harrison Ford is president and has to rescue his wife and daughter. I assume this scenario would not fit into Hillary's version of a trip she had to make to Bosnia in 1996 because it was too dangerous for the president himself to go.

An article in The Washington Post says there is just one problem with the following stories by Hillary. They just aren't true:

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."
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Of course the main story is the embellishment, the resume padding. For as The New York Times notes:

As part of her argument that she has the best experience and instincts to deal with a sudden crisis as president, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton recently offered a vivid description of having to run across a tarmac to avoid sniper fire after landing in Bosnia as first lady in 1996.

Yet on Monday, Mrs. Clinton admitted that she “misspoke” about the episode — a concession that came after CBS News showed footage of her walking calmly across the tarmac with her daughter, Chelsea, and being greeted by dignitaries and a child.

The backpedaling was a rare instance of Mrs. Clinton’s acknowledging an error, and she did so on a sensitive issue: She has cited her “strength and experience” since the start of the presidential race, framing her 80 trips abroad as first lady as preparation for dealing with foreign affairs as president. That argument was behind her campaign’s “red phone” commercial, which cast her as best able to handle a crisis.


But while the mail story is the embellishing and resume padding, I think the part of the story in bold in my Saturday post is also significant, and such part is missing from the coverage of the story in such publications as The New York Times story linked above and an AJC story and the television coverage I have seen.

This part of the story is that after her version was challenged by one of her traveling companions, she upped the ante and injected even more drama into the story.

And then the video comes out, and she says it is only a "minor blip."

"I went to 80 countries, you know. I gave contemporaneous accounts, I wrote about a lot of this in my book. You know, I think that, a minor blip, you know, if I said something that, you know, I say a lot of things — millions of words a day — so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement," she said.
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Also see Pantsuit on Fire at RealClearPolitics.com.

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