Team Hillary doubles down on her Pakistan mistakes
posted at 9:49 am on January 2, 2008 by Bryan
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I say “mistakes” because there are more than one. ABC, following Politico’s lead, only reports on Hillary’s saying that Musharraf is “on the ballot” when he’s not in fact on the ballot, having been re-elected to a third five-year term as president back in October. But that’s just one of the mistakes that Hillary made on Sunday. She also mischaracterized Benazir Bhutto’s PPP and she put Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif on the ballot to run against Musharraf. Neither Bhutto nor Sharif were running for Musharraf’s office, and Sharif couldn’t run at all because he’s a convicted felon. So both ABC and Politico don’t have the story entirely right, either. Their reporting is an inch deep on this.
Anyhow, to the Clinton team’s blatant lies. Their spin now is pathetic.
ABC News’ Brian Wheeler, Teddy Davis and Kate Snow report: The Clinton campaign says Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., did not make a mistake when she talked about Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf as a presidential candidate, in a recent interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.
“Well, his party is on the ballot,” said communications director Howard Wolfson, in an interview at Clinton headquarters in Des Moines, Tuesday, suggesting that the senator knew the difference between the man and the party being up for election, but was using shorthand. “And I don’t think anybody questions that Sen. Clinton has a vast and deep knowledge about foreign policy.”
Well, her vast and deep knowledge was easily blown away by poking around on Google for 10 or 20 minutes. Her vast and deep knowledge was in fact entirely wrong. The only thing vast and deep about the Clinton machine is its tendency to lie and toss out vast and deep quantities of BS.
And saying “Well, his party is on the ballot” is true, but it’s also irrelevant. The now postponed Pakistani election won’t replace Musharraf and never would have. It’s about parliament and the prime minister job. Hillary didn’t know what she was talking about.
Hillary Clinton made a series of major mistakes on a major story, mistakes that show that she doesn’t know the story as well as she claims to. She ought to own up to that, get up to speed on the story, and make amends. That’s what normal people do. But that’s never been the Clinton MO. They’ll trot out their army of spinners to lie through their teeth to the American people, just like they did for 8 years when they had power.
(via Ace)
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ZING!
tlynch001 on January 2, 2008 at 9:53 AM
Well, if you think about it, all the Democrats in 2006 were campaigning on ‘defeat Bush’ mantras. His party was on the ticket there, too, so it’s the same thing.
James on January 2, 2008 at 9:55 AM
Good God! Do we really want (potentially) eight more years of this crap where every statement has to be parsed? Oh! and the last bit is a real gem because EVERYBODY questions Hillary’s experience in foreign policy. It’s the weakest part of her credentials no matter how much her campaign says otherwise.
Standing by for the explanation of what Clinton spokesman really meant when he said what he said.
highhopes on January 2, 2008 at 9:55 AM
Good work, Bryan, in picking this up and making it almost impossible for MSM to ignore! Blogging at its BEST.
petefrt on January 2, 2008 at 9:59 AM
Remember when Bush stumbled on the gotcha question about the PM of India back in 2000? We never heard the end of it.
This dunce hasn’t got a clue what she’s talking about and we’re supposed to believe the garbage coming out of Howard Wolfson’s piehole?
Please.
JammieWearingFool on January 2, 2008 at 10:07 AM
Recall how in 2000, a snotty reporter in Boston suckered Bush into a quiz and Bush was not able to name the leaders of some small countries. The MSM had a field day. The MSM kept contrasting W’s alleged stupidity with Gore’s brilliance. Will anyone do the same to Hillary when she does not even know that in a parliamentary election, the president does not stand for election against an opponent? Somehow I doubt it. The MSM is still marveling about Hillary’s courage in surviving the “corkscrew landing” on her heroic mission to the Balkans. Hillary described her trip as though she were Lindbergh on the Spirit of St. Louis back around 1927. I wonder if anybody in the MSM will make a FOIA request for the flight log. I doubt it since everybody in the MSM is more interested in using the FOIA to find out if some terrorist in Gitmo failed to receive a steak dinner with mushrooms on New Year’s Eve.
Larraby on January 2, 2008 at 10:11 AM
Some question her gravitas on issues of importance.
Or maybe but not really, but Bush didn’t have gravitas.
Hillary has gravitas.
It took three drones from ABC to report this? Or did it take three to figure out how to make this look best for Mrs. Gravitas…
benrand on January 2, 2008 at 10:12 AM
Or how about when Bush said “Mandela’s dead”, in the context that those who are like Mandela in Iraq have been killed? The LA Times is still reporting it like Bush thought Nelson Mandela is dead.
amerpundit on January 2, 2008 at 10:13 AM
Tell it like it is Bryan – God I love it !!!
OBX Pete on January 2, 2008 at 10:15 AM
ABC: the network that thinks Chris Cuomo is a credible journalist.
Jaibones on January 2, 2008 at 10:18 AM
To paraphrase Reagan, it’s not that Hillary doesn’t have a vast and deep knowledge– it’s just that she know’s so much that isn’t so.
morganfrost on January 2, 2008 at 10:18 AM
You’re going have to explain that one Benrand.
Hillary Clinton has seven years experience in the US Senate. She’s not held any key positions on international affairs committees or commissions. There is nothing in her background to suggest she is has executive leadership potential. Her one foray in public policy making was a complete and utter failure (not to mention illegal in the way she went about doing it).
John Edwards has just about as much “gravitas” because he has six years in the Senate and a prior presidential run behind him. So, unless you are talking about Hillary’s ample caboose, I’d sure be interested in knowing why you think she’s got gravitas.
highhopes on January 2, 2008 at 10:22 AM
This is, of course, assuming that the word ‘gravitas’ doesn’t have something to do with ‘gravy’ and ‘tatas.’
James on January 2, 2008 at 10:27 AM
This chit is going to really piss me off if that hack gets into the white house.
Griz on January 2, 2008 at 10:39 AM
Almost impossible, indeed. Almost.
BacaDog on January 2, 2008 at 10:44 AM
The problem with this is…Iowans don’t care about it, National Security is far too low on their list of priorities for POTUS. Hillary will get a pass with the help of her minions, including George Step-on-all-of-us. But it will come around and she will slip up, I just hope it’s when more people are paying attention and the lights are much brighter.
Patience folks…
swami on January 2, 2008 at 10:56 AM
Well, it IS his party. Just like the PPP is a wholly-owed subdivision of Bhutto, Inc.
mojo on January 2, 2008 at 11:06 AM
Everyone pray for her to make it in the primaries. She’s easier to beat than Obama. Of course, that all depends on who’s opposite, from this side.
Entelechy on January 2, 2008 at 11:29 AM
Gravitas.
Gravitas.
Gravitas.
It was the MSM’s sole reason for hammering Bush again ad again for mispronouncing Musharaff.
Again and again with the gravitas, over and over. Rush had a compilation of dozens of talking boobs saying over and over again “gravitas”.
It was amazing that they all decided on using that word, all at the same time. Just a coincidence, I’m sure.
So where are they asking about Hillary!’s gravitas?
Guess it doesn’t matter all that much.
benrand on January 2, 2008 at 11:41 AM
Since “his party is on the ballot,” I think that I’m going to vote for Reagan. Oh, I know, he was a 2 termer, but it doesn’t matter – “his party is on the ballot.”
OhEssYouCowboys on January 2, 2008 at 12:26 PM
Among all the candidates, is she alone in her ignorance of the enemy?
All are woefully ignorant but the republicans at least know that somebodies butt needs kicking and not licking.
What is a big concern of mine is how many “Pentagon type Mr. Islam aides” are waiting in the wings or are already whispering taqiyya in their ears. But it would be “racist” to investigate this I am sure.
BL@KBIRD on January 2, 2008 at 12:55 PM
The MSM are such God-damned lap dogs. It’s pathetic. There’s hardly a one of them that ain’t worms.
I’m officially replacing all my Lawyer jokes with Reporter jokes. Well, maybe not the shark ones. Or I could replace “shark” with “weasel.”
Merovign on January 2, 2008 at 3:09 PM
Wolf Blitzer should be the official mascot of the Hillary Clinton campaign.
Larraby on January 2, 2008 at 3:30 PM
This is not her first foreign policy snafu. I remember Hillary speaking in October about Iran and the fact that “we don’t really understand how the Iranian government works.” She was in the White House for 8 years and has been a U.S. Senator for 8 years and she has no idea how the Iranian government work?
DFWShook on January 2, 2008 at 6:28 PM
Exactly. But now we have blogs like this one to put enough pressure on MSM to at least acknowledge the story.
petefrt on January 2, 2008 at 7:33 PM
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