Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

No Left Turns

Truth Deprived

Sen. Clinton has, finally, with the help of dozens of contrary accounts and incontrovertible video evidence, recollected that her visit to Bosnia in 1996 wasn’t so harrowing after all. In a speech last week she said, "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."

Now that her memory has been refreshed by apoplectic campaign aides, the candidate has tried to walk back her vivid memories to a closer approximation of objective reality. In admitting that the story didn’t happen the way she had so vividly remembered it, Clinton told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review today, "I was sleep-deprived, and I misspoke."

But Senator, won’t you be sleep-deprived when that phone rings in the White House at 3:00 a.m.? If you respond to the lack of sleep by clearly recalling events that never went through the formality of taking place, aren’t you likely to be responding to a national security crisis in, you know, sub-optimal ways?

Discussions - 5 Comments

William:

I don't know if the GOP wants to get into a spitting match with Hillary supporters over who's sharper at 3:00 am. When McCain is awakened at 3:00 am and thinks of how Iran is arming and training al-Qaeda, that's surely more significant than a ten-year old memory about a single landing in Bosnia, don't you think?

When you get old you are often up at 3:00 AM, and are quite regrettably perky at that hour. The problem, then, is also being so awake at 3:00 PM the next day.


The unfortunate aspect of Senator Clinton's memory is that it tends to recall things in a self-aggrandizing way. The selective and imaginative memory is more distressing than her exhaustion, which is believable. Perhaps she ran with her head down at some other landing? And yet, doesn't it seem unlikely? "It's too dangerous for the President to go. We'll send the First Lady for the snipers to shoot at." Who, at any level of government security would say that?

Kate,

Would Bill ever do such a thing?

The scary thing is that Clinton is probably the best and most conservative of the three liberals still in the race. How did it come to this?

Scott D, I thought of that afterwards. It is a nasty thought, and shameful given how easily it comes to mind. We ought to think well of everyone, but everyone makes that so hard.


John, no really, she isn't. Her policies, especially on the domestic side, are nearly indistinguishable from Obama's. Viewed from the Left, McCain is certainly more conservative. View from the Right, McCain appears closer to them than he actually is. You know those tricks of visual perspective? There is a political analogy to that here.

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