Hillary's List of 'Lies and Deception' on Meet The Press DEBUNKED

Forum Name General Discussion: Politics
Topic subject Hillary's List of 'Lies and Deception' on Meet The Press DEBUNKED
Topic URL http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4053596#4053596
4053596, Hillary's List of 'Lies and Deception' on Meet The Press DEBUNKED
Posted by wyldwolf on Sun Jan-13-08 02:23 PM

Earlier today, a DUer gave a list of perceived "lies" by Senator Clinton based on his viewing of this morning's 'Meet The Press.' http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4051336&mesg_id=4051336

The following is a response based on the actual transcript from the show and other sources.

1. Hillary said that Obama has called himself like RFK or MLK. It's people who have compared him to those leaders, not himself.


Wrong. From today's broadcast of 'Meet The Press:'

SEN. CLINTON: I understand the taking out of context and the mischaracterization. I've spoken with Congressman Clyburn. I have spoken with a number of my very strong and adamant supporters, but Tim, I can't let you get away with that mischaracterization and those snippets. I was responding to a speech that Senator Obama gave in New Hampshire where he did compare himself to President Kennedy and to Dr. King..."

In that speech, given Jan. 7 in Concord, NH, Obama did reference MLK and JFK (not Bobby Kennedy):

Imagine John F. Kennedy looking up at the moon, and saying, 'Darn, that's far.'... Imagine -- imagine Dr. King standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, looking out at those crowds -- a quarter million people around the reflecting pool -- and saying, "Ya'll go home." The dream has died. It can't be done. It's too hard."

2. She said no one wants to inject gender into the race. Her campaign made it very clear it was about gender after her debate performance in Philadelphia. The "men are piling on"? Playing Woman As Victim was an obvious component of her campaign.


Misleading.

The actual quote from today's broadcast is, "I don't think either of us want to inject race or gender in this campaign. We are running as individuals, we are making our cases to the American people, and it's imperative that we get the record and the facts straight because people are entitled to have that information."

Playing the race card has been just as obvious an Obama campaign tactic as Hillary using matters of gender.

3. Hillary said Obama's Iraq speech in 2002 was off his web site. It was ON his web site. The text of the speech is also on his web site. She continued to distort Obama's statements on the Iraq War. Obama has set forth that he will not vote for more funding without timelines.


Everything Hillary said here is factual.

From today's broadcast, Sen. Clinton said Obama "...gave a speech opposing the war in Iraq. He gave a very impassioned speech against it and consistently said that he was against the war, he would vote against the funding for the war. By 2003, that speech was off his Web site."

While running for Senate in 2003, Sen. Obama acknowledged that he took his anti-war speech off his campaign website, calling it 'dated.' Specifically, State Senator Obama maintains that an October 2002 anti-war speech was removed from his campaign web site because “the speech was dated once the formal phase of the war was over, and my staff's desire to continually provide fresh news clips." http://www.blackcommentator.com/47/47_cover.html

4. She said when someone does something wrong, they are gone from her campaign. What about Penn?


Conjecture

What about Penn? You have an opinion he did something "wrong." She does not.

5. Hillary thinks that Obama's rhetoric is all he has. She has implied that Obama has never passed any legislation. He HAS passed legislation and has done much more than she has ever done.


Wrong

Clinton didn't say or imply Obama has never passed any legislation. She correctly stated that when Senator Obama was asked at a recent debate what his major accomplishment in the Senate was, Obama responded it was passing ethics reform and getting legislators to be prohibited from having lunch with lobbyists.

6. She wants the voters to have accurate records of the issues of the candidates, yet continues to lie about Obama's actual legislation that he authored, co-sponsored or passed. Her accomplishments are thin as Senator. Her claim that the lobbyists getting lunch sitting up or down for campaign reform is only one component of many other reforms, so it's a cheap shot.


Convoluted.

Today's broadcast of 'Meet The Press' did not cover Obama's legislation beyond the ethic reform. However, it is accurate that Obama's ethics reform prohibits legislators from having lunch with lobbyists unless they stand up to do it. http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/12/its-a-holly-jol.html

7. Hillary was combative and deceptive about her vote on the Iraq War Resolution. Her speech at that time proved that she was for attacking Saddam. She had to go ahead and attack Obama even though he clearly knew that the Iraq War was a "dumb war" and had said his speech at the same time she voted for Bush's invasion. Additionally, her vote against the Levin Amendment to use more diplomacy was defended by trying to deflect that she knows Levin and that she wants to stop discussing "what happened in 2002". Oddly, that is her primary attack on Obama as well as the lies made by her husband. She doesn't want to talk about 2002, yet continued to talk about Obama's speech.

Additionally, she says she would not have voted for the war had she had known that he would have attacked Iraq. What? There will millions in the streets protesting the impending war knowing that Bush was all about going into Iraq. Is she that stupid or a sucker?

Her "explanation" about not reading the NIE was answered by saying she looked at all the information. Excuse me? The NIE pointed to how the intelligence was bogus and would be the first document you would read to get an informed opinion on the intelligence. She looked at all the information except the intelligence information she should have looked at?


Twisted

1. Hillary's speech at the time does not prove she was for attacking Saddam.

"Today we are asked whether to give the President of the United States authority to use force in Iraq should diplomatic efforts fail to dismantle Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological weapons and his nuclear program... Some people favor attacking Saddam Hussein now, with any allies we can muster... However, this course is fraught with danger. We and our NATO allies did not depose Mr. Milosevic, who was responsible for more than a quarter of a million people being killed in the 1990s. Instead, by stopping his aggression in Bosnia and Kosovo, and keeping on the tough sanctions, we created the conditions in which his own people threw him out and led to his being in the dock being tried for war crimes as we speak.

If we were to attack Iraq now, alone or with few allies, it would set a precedent that could come back to haunt us. In recent days, Russia has talked of an invasion of Georgia to attack Chechen rebels. India has mentioned the possibility of a pre-emptive strike on Pakistan. And what if China were to perceive a threat from Taiwan?

So Mr. President, for all its appeal, a unilateral attack, while it cannot be ruled out, on the present facts is not a good option." http://clinton.senate.gov/speeches/iraq_101002.html

2. The OP, again, is clearly wrong in his summary of Clinton's answer to the Levin Amendment question. She, in fact, did not deflect by saying "that she knows Levin and that she wants to stop discussing 'what happened in 2002'.

What she did say, from the transcript, is "...in my view, (the Levin Amendment) gave the Security Council of the United Nations a veto over American presidential power. I don't believe that is an appropriate policy for the United States, no matter who is our president.

Number two, I have the greatest respect for Senator Levin. He is my chairman on the Senate Armed Services Committee. And I--immediately after we did have the vote on the authorization, went to work with him to try to make sure that every piece of intelligence we had was given to the U.N. inspectors. And Senator Levin and I sent a letter to Secretary Powell, we pushed that position very hard because we both had the same view that we were going to put inspectors back in and we needed to let the inspectors do the job that they were asked to do."

3. Her answer in regards to discussing what happened in 2002 was not in response to a question on the Levin Amendment but rather as a contrast to 2002 and the events since 2002.

Again, from the transcript: "Now, we can sit here and argue about 2002 or we can say what has happened since and what needs to happen going forward in the future. And I think that you have two different story lines here. You have Senator Obama's story line, the speech he gave in '02, to his credit, which then was not followed up on. By '03, it was off his Web site. By '04, he was saying he didn't know he would vote and that he basically agreed with George Bush on the conduct of the war. There were others, Tim, who voted against it, spoke out against it and never wavered over that period of time."

4. People march in the streets in protest of most wars since the 60s. The presence of protesters does not does not equate to knowledge of the details.

5. The NEI, contrary to what the OP states, did not say the intelligence was bogus. It gave caveats to the intelligence.

8. Her "experience" including her years as a First Lady is as she said, a false distinction. She again lies about Obama not saying how he will pay for the changes she wants as well as says she has shown how she will pay for her healthcare plan, even though she has never told anyone how the individual mandates for healthcare insurance will be enforced.


1. Obama does not believe her experience as first lady is a "false distinction."

"She's very smart ... people rightly give her credit for having been a participant in the Clinton administration and for doing some heavy lifting on issues." Barack Obama, speaking of Hillary Clinton's White House experience and contradicting Obama supporters - The Daily Show with Jon Stewart 8/22/07

2. Where has Obama stated how he'll pay for his policies?

9. She mentioned Obama's use of the vote "present", which is used in senatorial legislation phases to stop bad legislation in state legislatures like Illinois, as an attack that Presidents can't vote "present". She knows this is deceptive and dishonest, yet continues to use that ruse.


Kindly give examples of other legislators using this device over 100 times