If you vote for Obama, this is what you’re voting for (Reminder #7)
Riding the rails with Sen. Obama in Pennsylvania:
DOWNINGTOWN, Pa.—At the next train stop, I’m going to stand behind Sen. Obama when he speaks. When he’s decrying the trivial distractions in politics, I think he may be crossing his fingers behind his back.
As the senator’s campaign train wound from one speech where he denounced tit-for-tat politics to the next speech where he denounced tit-for-tat politics, his campaign hosted a conference call to engage in the practice the candidate was busy denouncing. I suppose it would have been an even greater act of chutzpah for the Obama campaign to host the conference call while Sen. Obama was denouncing that kind of behavior, but not much more of one.
Obama campaign aides scheduled the call to talk about Hillary Clinton’s fantastical story about her breakneck race to shelter under sniper fire during a visit to Bosnia. You might think this would be the last story the Obama campaign would be pushing because in Wednesday’s debate, the senator mistakenly suggested his campaign had only discussed the issue because reporters had brought it up—not because they were trying to take advantage of Clinton’s extended work of fiction. To push the story again now would make Obama look even more insincere about that claim.
In the same debate, Obama also suggested the story was pretty much off-limits. When asked about Clinton’s Bosnia problem, he said this: “I think Sen. Clinton deserves, you know, the right to make some errors once in a while. … I think what’s important is to make sure that we don’t get so obsessed with gaffes that we lose sight of the fact that this is a defining moment in our history … for us to be obsessed with this—these kinds of errors I think is a mistake. And that’s not what our campaign has been about.”
On his train tour Saturday, Sen. Obama continued to condemn the petty distractions that keep Americans from focusing on real issues. He decried Clinton’s “tactics of Washington,” in which she attacks him with every possible weapon. “She’s got the kitchen sink flying, the china flying. The buffet is coming at me … when we get involved in the constant distractions, the petty tit-for-tat politics … that may be good for the television ratings, but that’s not good for you.”
While the candidate was denouncing the distractions, his aides were promoting them. Three veterans of the Bosnia conflict joined for a conference call to explain just how crucial this particular distraction was and why we should ignore Sen. Obama’s guidance and get obsessed with this issue.
Maj. Gen. Walter Stewart explained that because Clinton had fabricated on the issue of sniper fire, Clinton would not be able to perform the traditional ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier who, he averred, was undoubtedly killed by sniper fire. “She will lack the moral authority to lay the wreath on Memorial Day,” he said. She would also be unable to honor the veterans remembered on the Vietnam memorial because many of them had also been killed by sniper fire. Capt. Aaron Clevenstine offered a variation on this theme: “As someone who trained snipers, I take offense to the notion that she was under sniper fire.” Michael Kotyk, a retired veteran of the Navy, broadened the significance of Clinton’s yarn: “We’ve had eight years of dishonor. We need honor. If you’re going to tell stories, then you’re not displaying honor.”
Shortly after the conference call ended, Sen. Obama’s train pulled into Downingtown, and he worked the crowd into a frenzy by denouncing the scourge of petty, distracting attack politics.
One interesting thing to note is that Sen. Clinton’s memory lapse about the Bosnia incident was almost certainly innocent. I say that not as a Hillary supporter, but as someone who’s interested in the vagaries of human memory. The human mind is not a tape recorder; it confabulates, confuses, and creates memories all the time. In the case of the Bosnia trip — which happened more than a decade ago — it seems clear that Sen. Clinton unconsciously confabulated the details from two different landings during that trip (one of which did involve sniper fire), the warnings of the pilot about enemy fire, and perhaps her own fears.
That’s not a lie; it’s a mistake.
Here are some examples of obvious, deliberate lies, the kind people tell to keep from getting in trouble:
1. Telling the press that your only connection to the criminal slumlord Tony Rezko is “five hours of work” your law firm did for him once — when in fact the guy has been your buddy for years, helped you buy your house, and donated a quarter of a million dollars to your campaign.
2. Telling the press that William Ayers is just “a guy who lives in [your] neighborhood” — when in fact he launched your political career in his living room, gave you a crucial job as the head of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, and worked side-by-side with you for years.
3. Telling the press that you’ve never heard Rev. Jeremiah Wright say the kinds of things he’s said in various videotaped sermons — when in fact he’s been your pastor and spiritual mentor for 20 years, and you are so well-aware of his outrageous views that you refused to let him appear next to you on the day you announced your run for President.
17 Responses to “If you vote for Obama, this is what you’re voting for (Reminder #7)”
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Kiuku says:
“Telling the press that William Ayers is just “a guy who lives in [your] neighborhood” — when in fact he launched your political career in his living room, gave you a crucial job as the head of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, and worked side-by-side with you for years.”
Evidence suggesting Ayers helped Obama write his book:
http://www.americanthinker.com.....wrote.html
I actually don’t take this with that much salt, because I’ve seen Obama unprompted and he is a stammering moron unrehearsed and off script.
October 28th, 2008 at 7:13 pm EST -
quixote says:
The whole Bosnia-sniper-fire bullshit made me tired from the get-go, so I didn’t pay attention. You mean to tell me there was an incident where Hillary was under fire? She just basically got the date wrong?
You have got to be effing kidding me. That whole tempest in a commander-in-chief cap was about two conflated memories? And that in someone like Hillary who probably has had every five minute slice scheduled since high school. If I had her life, everything older than a week ago would be a blur!
I was mad enough to never stop screaming before this. Now what do I do?
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Violet says:
No, I’m not kidding. At the time one of her aides wrote to the New York Times and explained that the sniper fire happened at one of their other landings in Bosnia during that trip (or at least that’s what the pilot told them): the plane had to either circle or detour or something like that because there were snipers aiming at them from the ground. And I think some of the landing arrangements were changed — something like that, see, my memory is shit and this is something I was just reading 6 months ago. But at any rate, yeah — the point was, Hillary had obviously just mixed up various memories from the whole Bosnia trip.
But of course that was ignored, drowned out by the screams of indignation from Obama supporters. Some prominent Obama supporter, I think Spike Lee, wrote in the Huffington Post that Clinton was obviously a pathological liar and couldn’t be trusted and what more proof did you need that we had to elect Obama?
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Kiuku says:
Hypocrites. The Democrats have nothing left but to accept their hypocrisy en masse.
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Kat says:
quixote says:
The whole Bosnia-sniper-fire bullshit made me tired from the get-go, so I didn’t pay attention. You mean to tell me there was an incident where Hillary was under fire? She just basically got the date wrong?
Oh god, me too. I almost heard your words bouncing around inside my head.
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myiq2xu says:
The Slate article is proof that the media is and has been in the tank for Obama. They can’t claim ignorance or that they were misled.
Obama says one thing to them in public and another in private, so when they keep the latter statement a secret it’s not an accident. They are co-conspirators.
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tinfoil hattie says:
Here’s the feminists’ friend to women, right here:
She’s got the kitchen sink flying, the china flying. The buffet is coming at me …
I’m sure feminists everywhere will be vindicated when they hear the deafening silence from Obama on support for women.
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Kiuku says:
But he’s so eloquent:
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NJW says:
And the feminist’s friend in his own words today:
“So whether you are Suzy the student, or Nancy the nurse, or Tina the teacher, or Carl the construction worker, if my opponent is elected, you will be worse off four years from now than you are today,” Obama said
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Greenconsciousness says:
They are quoting a paragraph in BO’s book where he states; in order not to be seen as a sell out he was careful to pick out activists as friends including “structured feminists”. ????
Does anyone know what is a “structured feminist”?What I found in Wikipedia cannot be it.
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Violet says:
Does anyone know what is a “structured feminist”?
Feminists who wear girdles?
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Kiuku says:
structured feminist probably means, like Liberal Feminist, or man-loving Feminist, like a Feminist who knows her limits kind of deal. Like how best to make men feel good about themselves Feminist. Structured Feminist= but what about the menz/racism, weather, etc
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Greenconsciousness says:
I am laughing Violet
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Violet says:
Seriously, if he really said “structured feminists” that’s a mistake. He means structural feminism.
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slythwolf says:
I’m not so sure he doesn’t mean “feminists who say what they’re told to say”.
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Greenconsciousness says:
right again Violet
Found some articles on it — never can decide if those who write from theory rather than experience are worth the trouble to read but I am trying.
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cellocat says:
I swear, the guy is a gaffe machine, and the MSM ignores it. Structured, like as in a payment plan? I still do not understand people who say he’s brilliant and inspirational. I think he just wants to sound impressive with a big vocabulary and purple prose. That tendency is supposed to be trained out of you by the end of HS.
ah well.
