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A silly fib

Christopher Hitchens recently mentioned a small, if telling example, of how Hillary Clinton fibbed about how she got her first name. It is a small detail, not the sort of thing to necessarily cause my blood pressure to rise dangerously, but it is revealing about what sort of character she is. Rather like Tony Blair claiming to have seen Newcastle FC legend Jackie Milburn, when that would have been an impossible feat, given Blair’s age when he made the claim.

These little details, they get noticed.

20 comments to A silly fib

  • WalterBoswell

    Indeed they do. A big segment of the HRC way of selling herself seems to be based on half truths, exaggerations and outright fibs – Obama OTOH would – in my slightly blurred understanding of his campaign – seem to be a whole lot purer and on a higher road. I’ll be interested to see how the HRC machine deals with that Robert Johnson episode.

  • Stereotyping, going on first impressions, and judging the likes of Hilary on such a small fib are all things we are told to resist, but in so doing we limit our ability to judge the outside world.
    My first impression of Gordon Brown, when at the start of his Chancellorship he decided to reinstate car tax on old classic cars suggested to me that he was a particularly mean spirited, authoritarian, bully happy to attack a small group of relatively harmless anoraks with an act which did little to raise revenue.

    I have had no need to change my opinion of Brown in the decade since.

  • nostalgic

    All politicians lie – it goes with the job. The trick is to find the truth in their utterances and thats where blogs are so useful.

  • Nostalgic: true, but not in a way you may have meant. What is really telling is that it is such a small and unnecessary lie. I can understand someone lying about something like raising taxes, but this seems more pathological than anything else. The woman is truly a nasty piece of work.

  • renminbi

    That one is just a little porky.The big one is the 100,000$ cattle futures gain. A good account was given in the Feb.20 ,1995 National Review, but from my own experience as a successful futures trader who made a good living in the business, I can say her explanation was utter BS. During this same time her trading advisor Robert”Red” Bone lost heavily in Cattle futures. The winning trades were allocated to her at the end of the day ( not possible today with time stamps and money laundering laws). Bone was the Tyson Food’s lawyer at the time. My guess? Tyson was compensated for the good trades he threw her way in exchange for God knows what favor Bill did for Tyson at the time.

  • Gregg

    In fairness to Blair, he never said he had seen Jackie Milburn play. It’s an urban myth. The radio interview in question was dug out of the archives and played on Football Focus, and he had made no such claim.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/2007/01/myths_and_fables_1.html

  • RAB

    It is by their small lies that you will know their true character.
    If you win or lose nothing by telling a lie
    then why tell it?
    Lord Archer springs to mind. Had he cut the bullshit he may have been London Mayor by now.
    But then that was not his style, and it aint Hillarys either.
    She is a congenital fantasist and power hungry liar “for the truth”
    Welcome to the Stepford Presidency.

  • Midwesterner

    Yes. But she had a perfectly unchallengable response.

    Indeed, a spokeswoman for Sen. Clinton named Jennifer Hanley phrased it like this in a statement in October 2006, conceding that the tale was untrue but nonetheless charming: “It was a sweet family story her mother shared to inspire greatness in her daughter, to great results I might add.”

    In other words. ‘Mommy lied to me but its okay because she meant well.’ Here mother is 88 and must accept being labeled either as a liar or as someone who sabotaged her daughter’s chances of being president. Nice.

  • R C Dean

    Indeed, a spokeswoman for Sen. Clinton named Jennifer Hanley phrased it like this in a statement in October 2006, conceding that the tale was untrue but nonetheless charming: “It was a sweet family story her mother shared to inspire greatness in her daughter, to great results I might add.”

    Show of hands – who believes that?

  • “The big one is the 100,000$ cattle futures gain.”

    Nonsense. “The big one” is in accusing the highest-ranking White House official since JFK to die a violent mysterious death of causing it, himself. And everyone in that administration was complicit in the lie, even if Field Marshal Rodham managed to stay out of the light on the thing.

    The Vince Foster case is the Rosetta Stone of the Ozark Long March.

  • steve-roberts

    For me this type of small lie is a litmus test for the character. If someone lies when there is nothing at stake, can they be trusted to be truthful when there is a lot at stake ? I don’t think so.

  • Nick M

    RAB nails it.

  • Paul Marks

    The Clinton machine is well organized.

    For example, they would respond to what renminbi says by saying “oh Tyson foods – that is so 1990’s”

    In fact they (and their echo chamber – the media) were saying everyone had to “move on” even in the 1990s (and the fraud was only committed in the 1980’s).

    What is vast commerical fraud when it is done by good people who believe in “social justice”?

    Fraud only matters when it is committed by Republicans – not by people who feel for the poor.

    Just as stealing and destroying classified documents from the national archives (who knows how many Mr Berger and the and others stole) does not matter – because the people who did were “good people” who mean well.

    In fact there is a history here – Hillary Clinton is in the tradition of Mrs Roosevelt (her idol) who tried to have the all the records of the old Russian section of the State Department destroyed (so that she and her friends could pretend that they did not know that tens of millions of people were being murdered in Russia).

    Today the media (especially N.B.C.) is supposed to be pro Obama rathert than pro Clinton – but they still let off their own. And the Clintons are still part of “us” (we of course are “them”).

    For example, if a Republican organized a protest against themselves the media would tear them apart.

    Senator Clinton’s people organized the “iron my shirt” protest at the last New Hampshire rally (to gain a sympathy vote from morons) but the main stream media do not expose the fraud.

  • Paul Marks

    Interestingly Senator Hillary Clinton is the only candidate in the Democrat Primary in Michigan today.

    Senator Obama and former Senator Edwards do not see any point in standing as Michigan’s delegates will not be allowed to vote at the Democrat National Convention because Michigan Democrats broke national party rules.

    I wonder what will happen if Senator Clinton finds herself short on delegates when it comes to the Convention.

    Will it be discovered that it was “quite wrong and unacceptable to rob the hard working people of Michigan of their democratic rights”?

  • She could have been called Sherpa.

  • Anon

    But lying about WMD, Saddam’s connections to 9/11, spending trillions on a vanity war, shredding the Bill of Rights, IOKIYR!

    So, by the Hillary standard, GWB is worse than 10 Hitlers, 5 Stalins and 3.2 Maos.

    Good to know where the bar has been set.

  • Axion

    And that’s relevant to what exactly, Anon? Seems like someone has a severe case of BDS,

  • RAB

    Awww common Anon (great handle by the way)

    She hasn’t got elected yet!
    I’m sure she’ll catch up with Bush in the human misery stakes. Just give her a chance!
    Or are you a misogynist?

  • RAB

    I feel myself Tensing
    about that one Ron. 😉

  • Ann NY

    Anon,

    The Clintons “lied” about WMDs as well, google it. Also,
    Bush never said Saddam had 9/11 connections. I’m not a big defender of Bush, but, your statements are too silly to let stand.