The most troublesome point in a politician’s career is where the opposition’s criticism coincides with the suspicions of one’s own party loyalists. That the narrative about Hillary and Bill Clinton emanating from both the left and the right are merging, should say something about the couple whether or not their supporters recognize it. More often than not, the area of agreement on both sides seems to be the astonishment at the Clintons’ overarching quest for power and the depths of deception they are willing to stoop to in order to realize that ambition. "I did not have sex with that woman," uttered with finger wagging emphasis; "I remember landing under sniper-fire. There was supposed to be some kind of greeting ceremony at the airport but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base," described in a tone of self deprecatory valor. The declarations remain, suspended in the public perception until a 12 year old video or a stained blue dress makes its appearance. Such casual disregard for truth point to a mindset that views politics as war whose spoils are personal power. Lying routinely as a way of self aggrandizement and demonizing one’s detractors come naturally to Mr. and Mrs. Clinton.
It began almost a year ago. To my astonishment, I grudgingly started to find common ground with Republicans in my assessment of the "Clinton character." It was as if some unpleasant repressed memories surfaced with the prospect of the Clintons getting back in the White House. When the Democratic presidential race took off in earnest, I expressed my unease with a possible Clinton presidency early on in this blog. As time has gone by, almost all left leaning bloggers and columnists as well as several of Hillary Clinton’s senate and elected party colleagues have deserted her side due to similar discontent over the unsavory nature of the Clintonian myths and drama that seem to unfold daily on the national stage. So, it did not surprise me when I read a column by Peggy Noonan, the grande dame of the intellectual wing of the GOP and found myself nodding in agreement. Noonan herself doesn’t say anything that we don’t already know. But she quotes from an pseudonymous poster named GI Joe whose satirical riff on Hillary Clinton dodging bullets in Bosnia, though exaggerated, perfectly captures the tenor of a Clinton lie.
"Actually Mrs. Clinton was too modest. I was there and saw it all. When Mrs. Clinton got off the plane the tarmac came under mortar and machine gun fire. I was blown off my tank and exposed to enemy fire. Mrs. Clinton without regard to her own safety dragged me to safety, jumped on the tank and opened fire, killing 50 of the enemy. Soon a suicide bomber appeared, but Mrs. Clinton stopped the guards from opening fire. She talked to the man in his own language and got him [to] surrender. She found that he had suffered terribly as a result of policies of George Bush. She defused the bomb vest herself. Then she turned to his wounds. She stopped my bleeding and saved my life. Chelsea donated the blood."
Hillary Clinton has taken Barack Obama to task for staying with Reverend Wright, the church pastor with a penchant for inflammatory rhetoric. She huffily proclaimed that one cannot choose one’s relatives (Obama’s grandma, for example) but one certainly can choose a pastor. News to Mrs. Clinton – one CAN choose one’s relatives … when the relative is a spouse who humiliates you time and again. But that she doesn’t think so, is her business. However, shouldn’t she be a bit careful before carelessly casting stones at others? As for keeping questionable company, see who was sitting beside Hillary Clinton when she sanctimoniously scolded her opponent.
More on Hillary’s war stories, this time from the left – Frank Rich in NYT.
Accidental Blogger 
5 responses to ““The Bosnian Killing Fields” – From the Left and the Right”
Well, apparently the sniper fire did happen, just not to Clinton. Maybe she ‘internalized’ somebody else’s experience (just like Kaavya Viswanathan claiming that she unconsciously absorbed words from books that she read!) Someday we’ll be done with the BritneySpearization of the Democratic election campaign ( I hope by April 23), and then we can focus on training the guns squarely on McCain, rather than all this inflation of every single tiny comment made by Hillary, or Bill, or Hillary’s advisor’s uncle’s brother, or Obama or Obama’s pastor’s cousin’s wife…
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I saw that and wondered what Olympia Snowe thought of HRC’s whopper.
Hillary doesn’t unconsciously “internalize” anything. Nothing about her is unplanned and uncalculating. All politicians are egotists with a penchant for self aggrandizement. But for the Clintons, it is a finely honed art form – there is always a fairy tale to sell to the public depending on the topic of the day. Recently when Bill Clinton’s jelly spined inaction and moral cowardice on Rwanda again surfaced in the media, guess what he said. Apparently, all his advisers urged him to stay out of that African tragedy except one… Hillary! Of course we will never know because it is not in any official record. But again, it shows the Clintons’ ability to rise to the occasion with an appropriate heroic myth.
Actually, I don’t believe that any candidate caught in a lie should be let off the hook so easily, particularly if the lie pertains to a broader narrative that is being pushed to bolster a candidate’s suitability as a leader. And the imaginary Bosnia sniper fire is clearly that – Hillary going toe to toe with McCain on war stories.
I have been wondering actually, how all this is playing out among the fabled “blue collar, lunch bucket, working class” Democrats of PA. Shouldn’t these salt of the earth types be disturbed by a candidate’s dishonesty and cozying up to an arch enemy like Richard Mellon Scaife who in the 1990s single handedly constituted 80% of the “vast right wing conspiracy” that was out to get the Clintons?
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I don’t know about whether Obama can persuade them that he is the one to vote for. Many of these blue-collar Democrats are very conservative, Democratic solely because of the labor and union affiliations. They might prefer Hillary to Obama on the race factor alone, even if every word Hillary uttered was a lie, and she made nice with most extreme of right-wing fanatics. Then we will see the same ‘Dems’ vote for McCain over Hillary, even if she somehow makes it to the nomination.
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The snarky Christopher Hitchens on this topic. (It is not a surprise that nowadays I most enjoy reading Hitchens’ eviscerating prose when he is writing about the Clintons)
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So right! Hitchens on HRC is brilliantly funny. On McCain, Iraq and other polarizing subjects, however, he is, to quote Dick Cavett’s description of W, a “capering loon.” But reading him on the Clintons is the only guaranteed stress-reduction this primary season has offered. Peggy Noonan is great too, but she’s a distant second. She never quite topped that article of Post-Super Tuesday, in which she divined that Clinton was losing by virtue of not winning bigger, and got inside Hillary’s head with a “Could I win ugly?” reverie. Sometimes I think Hillary herself made time for reading that piece, for its predictive accuracy has been very high indeed.
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