The frustrating thing is that the media need this kind of relatively trivial thing to get to a narrative that's based on a much more complex documentary record: in this case, that Clinton's claims of greater foreign policy experience than Obama are largely invented or imaginary. The same is going to be true for McCain in the general: if you don't have a little spontaneous "pretext", for some inexplicable reason you can't cover a story that's documentable, verifiable, and a matter of public record. Even when you *do* have a pretext, of course, it also comes down to how the press feels about a given candidate. Hence McCain getting a free ride on his evident lack of understanding about Iraq, which is a pretty good indication of how little he understands about foreign policy in general.
This is one of those cases that shows even very successful politicos are not endlessly calculating rational strategists. The idea that a plane carrying the First Lady of the United States would be allowed to land somewhere in the presence of sniper fire or whatever is obviously nuts. I mean, honestly. Even if she genuinely remembered it happening that way -- it was a long time ago -- a moment's thought would have suggested that she must be wrong. But off she goes and talks about it anyway, even though it's also clear that there's going to be archival footage of her visit. My bet is that she really did just talk off the top of her head and conflate her own experience with, e.g., something that one of her hosts had told her, etc.
The frustrating thing is that the media need this kind of relatively trivial thing to get to a narrative that's based on a much more complex documentary record
That seems right, and, for me, connects up to the way in which the media is tied up by its need to seem objective. (Link to MY discussion of Alterman piece.) The problem's solution, I suspect, lies in a press that doesn't think of itself as a unitary "the press."
I'm just gratified to see that that video has hundreds of thousands more views than any of the Wright videos, even the one that got publicity from that McCain aide who was fired.
My bet is that she really did just talk off the top of her head and conflate her own experience with, e.g., something that one of her hosts had told her, etc.
C'mon. Her whole campaign is based around a sham notion of "experience"; it didn't have to be, but that's the way they decided to run it. That's a decision that depends upon a pretty good working knowledge of what the press will buy without question and why.
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I've got a review up of a book about popular culture and philosophy. I'm pushing it because I was really late with the review, and I want to get back on the editor's good side.
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Ah, this is Bullets over Bosnia, I couldn't see the embed.
Please do get out of the race, Hillary, it's well past time. (But per Tim in 1, this does not strike me as any more delusional than McCain in the market in Baghdad.)
it didn't have to be, but that's the way they decided to run it.
It's one thing to decide to make the campaign about foreign-policy experience and hope the media will swallow it as a talking point. But is it really the case that the staffers all had a meeting and someone -- even Hillary -- said "Let's say I came under sniper fire in Bosnia" and then everyone says "That's great!"?
this does not strike me as any more delusional than McCain in the market in Baghdad
Well, that's reassuring.
Scientists have done a lot of testing of the reliability of eyewitness testimony. They have come to the general conclusion that Sinbad is very reliable.
Well, that's it, then. Sinbad has tanked the Clinton campaign.
But is it really the case that the staffers all had a meeting and someone -- even Hillary -- said "Let's say I came under sniper fire in Bosnia" and then everyone says "That's great!"?
Ah, I see what you mean. I think politicians have a tendency to be the heroes of their own stories, as it were, and are used to getting away with it. So I could believe that she made the statement off the top of her head and conflated with it some more general knowledge of the situation to come up with something that seemed plausible to her, and therefore was plausible. (This might be a variant of bullshitting, right?) That always seemed like the most probable explanation for Reagan's little fits of invented memory. I assume all politicians do it--heck, probably all people do it--to varying degrees.
Yeah, that's what I meant about it not all being calculating strategy --- or at least, it's calculating strategy built on the sandy foundations of your own infalted self-image, bad memory and so on.
Listening to the audio of HRC's speech on the clip, I have a question. Is she giving this in response to earlier criticism? Because she's denying a lot of specifics ("there was no welcoming ceremony"), not just bullshitting.
It turns out that she was "sleep-deprived" and "misspoke".
She does speak millions of words a day, after all.
Is she giving this in response to earlier criticism?
I couldn't figure that out, either. It sounded like she was having a subsequent press conference to reiterate her claims.
Right. Which is what confused me. Once is a slip or faulty memory; but shouldn't there be some kind of fact-checking before you go to defend it?
That always seemed like the most probable explanation for Reagan's little fits of invented memory.
Which included a wholly fabricated recollection of filming the liberation of Buchenwald, as a member of the Signal Corps. That false memory didn't seem to do him any harm.
I'm with Gonerill. Which is to say that I find her campaign's reaction to this gaffe much more revealing than the gafee itself. "No, she didn't make a mistake. There were snipers in the hills.*" And this would have been the perfect time to give a major public address on snapshot memory and dishonesty in the public square. Seriously, though, the Clinton unwillingness to ever admit a mistake is unsettling. Even if the mistake was an honest one (who knows in this case?).
* Always true, no? Depending on what you mean by snipers
It seems like she did reiterate the claims at first, and only now says she "misspoke."
14: That seems right. I do wonder whether her sense of credible is based on an unconscious sense of what the press has found credible in the past. Perhaps I'm wrong, but my sense is that press treatment of HRC has, until recently, been pretty dichotomous: hammer unfairly on personal stuff (hair, cackle, etc.), and give her a pass on the professional stuff (experience, war vote, etc.). I think that all of the candidates are subject to that sort of dual-treatment, but it seems peculiarly true of HRC (though, obv., I might be wrong).
she was "sleep-deprived"
Too many 3am phonecalls will do that.
My theory is that, independently of the merits or demerits of HRC's claim, anything that causes large numbers of voters to view a video of her in her 1990s incarnation will lose her votes. Just the visual of her before she acquired her current patina of matronliness will remind people of what they disliked about her.*
A good test to falsify this theory is what kind of visuals the McCain campaign uses in its negative ads if HRC is the nominee. My theory would predict that they will depict the early 1990s Clinton.
*Is this the result of rank misogyny? Probably.
From the link in 16:
"I was sleep-deprived, and I misspoke."s/b "I was sleep-deprived, just like many hard-working young mothers of small children all across this great nation, and I misspoke."
"I was sleep deprived, and misspoke" in my written, prepared remarks.
27: I'd take that bet. No way is Old Man McCain going to want the compared image to be one of a woman in the very prime of her life. That would just exacerbate what seems likely to me to be his biggest or second biggest problem.
"I was sleep-deprived, just like millions of other women whose husbands are out God-knows-where until all hours of the morning, and I misspoke."
"I misspoke, which is easy to do when under sniper fire."
"I misspoke because I was experiencing a flashback from a much more dangerous, much more important mission that national security concerns prevent me from telling you about."
I misspoke because I was experiencing a flashback hotflash
"I misspoke because I hadn't realized that the historical record hadn't been corrected yet."
"I misspoke because I didn't think they'd put it on YouTube."
I couldn't figure that out, either. It sounded like she was having a subsequent press conference to reiterate her claims.
A reporter asked Clinton about Sinbad disputing her account of the event. Clinton then retold the story.
This clip has the question at the halfway point:
"I misspoke, which shows that it's very easy to make a mistake and not say what you really mean. Therefore, it's quite likely that Senator Obama's current lead in delegates and votes does not truly reflect the will of the people."
"I misspoke. But the snipers are still out in the hills, aiming at you, Mr. Smartypants reporter."
I was told we had to land a certain way, we had to have our bulletproof stuff on because of the threat of sniper fire. I was also told that the greeting ceremony had been moved away from the tarmac but that there was this 8-year-old girl and, I can't, I can't rush by her, I've got to at least greet her -- so I greeted her, I took her stuff and then I left, Now that's my memory of it.
This account, which is plainly accurate in all its details, should put the whole thing to rest.
The idea that Clinton didn't know her Bosnia story was untrue when she told it is absurd. I also suspect that the campaign knew she would be called on it eventually, but went ahead with the story anyway because they knew they knew that the media would repeat the story as fact for a couple of months and by that point the "Clinton has extensive foreign policy experience" theme would accepted as true. Typical Rovian politics. I think it's important to remember Clinton's "kitchen sink" attacks on Obama and her claims of vast foreign policy experience were preceeded by a week of constant attacks on the media's coverage of the campaign.
33 is fucking funny. If Clinton began randomly invoking sniper fire as an explanation for everything, I would demand the superdelegates maker the nominee.
This is crazy-talk:
And this would have been the perfect time to give a major public address on snapshot memory and dishonesty in the public square.
I'm having trouble coming up with something concise and witty to say about this, but I do think it's funny that on one side we have Hillary trying to pretend that her routine Bosnia photo op was in fact a very dangerous foray into hostile territory, while on the other side we've got John McCain trying to pretend that his visit to a street market in Baghdad was just a casual no-risk photo-op, despite his bulletproof vest and platoon of bodyguards.
43: Walt, I was kidding about the speech.
Honestly, it sounds like she's describing Iraq, not Bosnia, and might well have just fucked up, and then came up with the standard badly-handled mismanagement of damage control. You get on a plane, you get off a plane, you get on a plane, you get off a plane: after awhile all that shit must blur together.
That said, her real problem has always been that she seems to really having a life that's been a non-stop action movie, which unfortunately nobody else has seen... because it didn't happen. I am beginning to seriously believe that being in the Senate drives people insane.
max
['But this plus her suggesting Alan Greenspan for a commission to solve the economic 'issues' of the US gives me her new slogan: 'Ready to Let Them Eat Cake On Day One'.]
25: (though ... I might be wrong)
I think this is a good candidate to be compressed into an internet shorthand abbreviation, TIMBW.
I've got a review up of a book about popular culture and philosophy
Rob L***** teaches philosophy at L***** C***** Community College. His essay "Baltar the Tyrant?" appeared in Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy
This is awesome.
McCain didn't have a platoon of bodyguards; he had one infantry company as close protection and another on a wider cordon, plus his own security goons, and air cover.
Because nobody has made the obligatory mention of Joe Biden, the coal miner's son, I hereby do so.
OT: We're doomed (don't miss the comments).
It's like a Batsignal for the misunderstood 19-year-old in all of us.
51:
For those who actually know Ayn Rand's essence, her name and philosophy are virtually airtight synonymous with the founders of the United States, Jefferson, Madison, et al. So for those who somehow come to the conclusion that the Rand philosophy is a cult: Was the philosophy of Madison, Jefferson, Adams a cult. Please explain.
Yeah, NPH -- please explain!
But this plus her suggesting Alan Greenspan for a commission to solve the economic 'issues' of the US gives me her new slogan
Not only is this the final straw that loses my vote for Clinton, but Krugman criticizes this without mentioning Rubin. Thus his Clintonite hackishness is proven, and all his posts on Obama become untrustworthy.
I am so disappointed and disillusioned. I may even become jaded and cynical, unless my dear friends in the blogosphere can give me someone to believe in, some ray of hope in the darkness. Where is the light?
53: A = A. If you're really awesome, you can rape the woman and she'll like it. Money is great and accrues to you in recognition of your specialness.
Thus endeth the lesson.
Longer the commenter in 53:
But you can't hold a whole fraternity responsible for the behavior of a few, sick twisted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn't we blame the whole fraternity system? And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn't this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? I put it to you, Greg - isn't this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but we're not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America. Gentlemen! [Leads the Deltas out of the hearing, all humming the Star-Spangled Banner]
those who actually know Ayn Rand's essence
Is this not suggestive of a cult, this "essence" thing?
51:You are right to worry, but possibly for the wrong reasons. This is simply nostalgia for an ideology past its time, and probably the strongest indication for the imminent collapse of Western Civ.
A Julian or Maistre or Henry Adams kind of thing.
Umm, kinda like my socialism or anarcho-syndicalism.
Time to move to Constantinople or something. The mortar is crumbling.
I prefer to reduce Ayn Rand to a roux. Delicious!
Female ejaculate is just urine, oudemia.
I'm with 31. 1990s-Clinton is teh hottttt.
61: I mean, I'm not sad she denied me it. She had to save something for Greenspan.
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she denied me it
I am fond of double accusatives.
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Maybe if it becomes widely known that Alan Greenspan thirsts for Ayn Rand's urine as well as her ideology, Hillary will be less likely to put him on the Committee to Save the Economy.
61: What do you mean, "just " urine?
Name-dropping as usual, I just missed meeting my mother's cousin John Hospers in 1960 -- the very year when he started banging Ayn Rand. He may have canceled on the family reunion for the very purpose of putting the schmooze on her.
Was I already name-dropping in 1960? Yes, I was!
You were name-dropping before name-dropping sold out.
(Actually, being related to someone who was banging Ayn Rand is pretty cool.)
Alternatively, he could have been locked up in Ayn's basement and chained to a post. I don't know the details.
To say nothing of a great ... aunt hanged for lewdness.
If B were to be hanged for lewdness she'd be so proud! But less is possible for the women of today.
75: It's true. I totally romanticize our lewd foremothers.
She's the Stagger Lee of liberated women, you see, or something like that, but you don't have blues songs about her.
76: Heather Has Four Lewd Mothers was a hell of a kids' book.
She's a bad bitch, that cru-el Stagger B.
More than lewdness, Emerson! Did you know that the midwife who snuck into Elizabeth's house to "check" why she had gained so much weight (this was secret pregnancy #2) and found the buried twins in the garden was the same midwife who was abducted with Hannah? And helped her with the chopping?
Well, I was reflecting during the last prostitution discussion that, for all I admire the hell out of the kept women of yesteryear for being practical and realistic enough to make some hay out of their rather limited opportunities, probably being a prostitute/mistress/kept woman pretty much sucked even more before birth control and antibiotics than it does now.
I did not know that. The Emerson girls kept thing hopping, all right.
I don't know whether lewdness was taken more seriously than infaniticide, or whether infanticide was regarded as a form of lewdness, but as I recall, lewdness was the capital crime.
whether infanticide was regarded as a form of lewdness
well, one cannot happen without the other.
81: don't want to start that one up again, but I can't help myself: how much worse than being a mail-order bride?
Common on the American frontier. In Taiwan a friend of mine told his Chinese students about his great-grandparents' marriage -- it was almost identitical to the old Chinese arranged marriages.
how much worse than being a mail-order bride?
Well, as a mail-order bride at least you would have some kind of social status. Assuming that you lived somewhere near other people. But obviously the answer as to which is better is really "it depends." Nell Gwyn? Better off than your average mail order bride. Your average mail order bride? Probably better off than the women Boswell fucked when he wandered around London at night.
as I recall, lewdness was the capital crime
When Impuritans, the musical retelling of the Elizabeth Emerson story, hits Broadway, the phrase "Lewdness is a capital crime" will be the much-quoted last line of the refrain in the song that concludes the first act ("It's Lewdness, Your Lordship").
64: I'm not, though. If current-Clinton stopped looking so presidential, and instead went for some trashy cougar look, I'd be totally into her. Plus she'd win back some of the 18-24 male vote.
Hm. "Trashy cougar," unflattering headband. I'm beginning to suspect that H-L has "issues."
Meanwhile, the University of Texas at Austin announced last week that it had received a $2-million grant from the BB&T foundation to establish a chair for the study of objectivism
ARMSMASHER!!! What is this b.s. you've been feeding me about Austin being the greatest place on earth? I demand a refund.
I prefer to reduce Ayn Rand to a roux.
How do you propose to do that?
(Actually, being related to someone who was banging Ayn Rand is pretty cool.)
Uh, no it isn't.
Not that Emerson isn't plentifully cool, you understand.
I think the charge was infanticide, since it had more or less recently been considered crime again. Let's see, the book closest to hand here says:
Hannah's father, Michael Emerson, was constantly in trouble with the Massachusetts authorities for abuse toward his family and neighbors. But in 1693, the family became a household name when Hannah's unmarried sister Elizabeth was accused of infanticide, found guilty, and hanged. Cotton Mather preached the execution sermon and chastised Elizabeth for tainting the community; the accused protested that she was innocent of killing her newborn twins, but admitted that she was guilty of rebellious behavior.
But that is just from a little intro to Hannah's narrative. The full Elizabeth story is much more thrilling, what with the parents of the first guy to knock her up denying their son would have anything to do with such a jade, etc.
91: It so totally is. I mean, of all people.
For me, it'd be like having a relation who used to be one of L. Ron Hubbard's teenage hotpants groupies.
"My cousin hate fucked Ayn Rand" would be a pretty sweet line to use at a party.
94: Those girls are priceless with their little sailor caps.
I once offered to sell my relationship to John Hospers to a libertarian I met, because, you know, everything is fungible for those guys. I didn't try to squeeze him, either, I was willing to settle for $50. I'd alienate my Hospers cousinhood, and he would become the new cousin. The cheapskate wouldn't cough up. He claimed to be a relative of Norwegian royalty, too. I would have been willing to trade straight across.
Oudemia and Drymala could do the Elizabeth Emerson opera. It would be plenty transgressive, especially if it was played as a comedy.
Nah, I think "hate fucked" is too vicious-sounding. "Banged" has just the right connotations of casual indifference and misogynistic putting-her-in-her-placeness.
Plus anyway, she's dead. Having a relative who fornicated with famous unsavory dead people is always kind of cool, in precisely that cocktail party chatter kind of way.
88: The video link is post-headband. I think she looks good with longer hair, but I am so not getting into a hairstyle conversation about a female presidential candidate.
Don't listen to B, gswift. Your ear was true: "hate-fucked" is perfect.
I think "hate fucked" is too vicious-sounding.
That's how the Randians like it.
88: Issues? I have the whole fucking subscription.
I am so not getting into a hairstyle conversation about a female presidential candidate.
Obama: Fade? High fade? Or cornrows?
helpy-chalk and I went to college with someone whose (great-)grandparents' marriage was broken up by Anais Nin.
Obama: Fade? High fade? Or cornrows?
Fade, of course. Cornrows look silly. Maybe the Kid (from Kid 'n Play) afro.
I thought the afro had to be spherical.
Kid's was more like a pencil eraser.
I just mean, you know, you don't reduce things to a roux, generally.
Reduce her buttery essence, then add flour.
Ari -- You can still reduce Ayn to a consommé, perhaps make an Objectivist jellied madrilene.
I thought you had to cook down the fat, no? Then add flour and whatever else, cook over a low flame, and voila: roux.
she was "sleep-deprived"
goddamit, Bill.
I mean, if I've been making my Rand roux incorrectly, I want to know about it. (Damn family recipes.)
Pwned again. Oh well, at least I still have my delicious essence of Ayn.
well, it's not really a "reduction" if all that's left is the fat.
116: Yes. I think Ari is more rendering Ayn than reducing her.
Ari, wanna have lunch next week sometime? Maybe Monday, Tuesday?
118: Whenever you'd like, B. Surely you don't want me to cook?
118/119: we can use your grandpa's bbq to cook
119: Nah, I was thinking possibly Celestin's on J Street, if it's still open and you're willing to drive a little. Then maybe we can go see Ogged's movie or something.
In any case, I have to run off to get PK now, but I'll email you later this afternoon.
105, 106: that's called a high-top, whitey
Meanwhile, the University of Texas at Austin announced last week that it had received a $2-million grant from the BB&T foundation to establish a chair for the study of objectivism
You know, it was rumored back when I was a student that they were going to bring on another philosophy professor and he'd almost certainly be an Objectivist. Which we all thought was just nuts but later seemed to be nothing more than a rumor. That's disappointing but a little unsurprising given the university administration.
Well, if it's in the clinical psychology department, little harm will be done, and quite possibly some good: "Diagnosis and Treatment of Objectivism."
Surely this is how you'd get the essence of Rand (though I hear those presses are pretty pricey!).
Probably couldn't get much beyond a little bone meal by now, I'd think.
if the air force and marine pilots had to yank and bank through air space to land then credibility is given to Hillary's account. the military gives out medals for combat action and cites days of combat in fitness reports and yet there is no consistency to these attributions either. i guess Scott O'grady was shot down in some other part of the world and Marines did not have to go in with guns blazing to rescue him.
BTW, children and women never get killed during war.
Now that she's already backed off the story, it's a tad late for debating the story's credibility, no?
i guess Scott O'grady was shot down in some other part of the world and Marines did not have to go in with guns blazing to rescue him.
BTW, children and women never get killed during war.
Captain O'Grady was shot down in June 1995. The Bosnian War was unequivocally over by December 1995. Clinton visited Bosnia in March 1996.
Now, I've been in conflict zones in Iraq, Lebanon, and southeastern Turkey, as well as more minor conflict zones elsewhere in the Middle East. I've been shot at by Iraqi insurgents, bombed by the Israeli Air Force, knocked down by a Syrian car bomb, and so on. I know what it's like to take sniper fire, mortar fire, and other kinds of fire that I don't particularly care to list.
I've also been to lots of places that sound scary, but that really aren't dangerous at all. I've been to places that were war zones a year ago, and that are now basically one ATM away from every European gap-year backpacker with too much of daddy's money. Places like Bosnia in March 1996.
And I've known plenty of European gap-year backpackers with too much of daddy's money who visited those places long after all the danger was over, and still went home and bragged to all their friends about how they took sniper fire on the tarmac in Tuzla. Assholes.
I've known plenty of women and children (and men) who've been killed in war. I also know that Hillary Clinton has never been at serious risk of joining them.
It's a shame that she's never run that risk. If she actually knew what war was like, maybe she wouldn't be so goddamn eager to start them.
The other Clinton's trip to Bosnia in January 1996 sounds less pleasant:
Mr. Clinton's trip was marked by heavy security. His precise itinerary was closely held, and Secret Service sharpshooters followed him in Tuzla, where he stayed inside the grounds of the airfield, seeing nothing of the war's effects on the town. A senior official in his entourage said the President's visit had "more logistical, security and weather variables" than he had ever encountered before.
Mr. Clinton took off from Tuzla about two and a half hours after his arrival as fog rolled in, advised by the Secret Service to leave before dark.
i guess Scott O'grady was shot down in some other part of the world and Marines did not have to go in with guns blazing to rescue him.
No, they didn't. No shots were fired during the extraction. They landed, they picked him up, they flew away again. The only thing that nearly went wrong was that, instead of staying in position until picked up, the muppet O'Grady came running towards the helos as soon as they touched down, in a complete panic, gun in hand, and almost got slotted by the door gunners who thought he was a Serb.
Really this is all a nit, and per Tim in 1, the kind of media swarm that differentially screws Dems over Repubs. So go ahead and jump on the bandwagon losers.
Far more damning is Hillary trying to surf on the Wright wave, perfectly imitating the FoxNews talking points with respect to Wright and Imus etc. The fact that she started it with Scaife's vanity press Tribune-Review is just the gilding on the manure.
I actually think that this is worse.
(This would be the Clinton camp pushing an American Spectator article that calls an Obama adviser an anti-semite for advocating Israel to withdraw to its pre-67 border. Um.)
No shots were fired during the extraction. They landed, they picked him up, they flew away again.
Wha... You mean, Behind Enemy Lines took liberties with the truth?
BTW, children and women never get killed during war.
I'm still blinking at this.
129: The really hardcore take sniper fire in places where you'd never expect it. For example, I took sniper fire on a trip to West Edmonton Mall once. It's a rougher city than you might think.