Reply #23: I'm having to post this a lot tonight 'cause [View All]

[Cha]

there's nothing more important than voters realizing how important it is that hilary liar clinton doesn't lie her way into OUR white house.

"Why Hillary’s Lies are Important"

By - March 24, 2008, 9:53PM
Hillary Clinton has been caught in a series of lies and misrepresentations during the primary campaign. To some of her supporters, these lies may seem trivial and insignificant and even politics-as-usual. However, please consider the serious impact of these lies by placing them in the context of the past seven years of the Bush Administration and the legacy of expanded executive power that he leaves behind. In particular, consider the dangerous message that the Clinton campaign sends by employing similar tactics to achieve her political goals.

1. The Florida and Michigan Primaries / The Delegate Count
Hillary agreed to honor the DNC’s decision to strip Florida and Michigan of its delegates after their primaries were moved up into January in express violation of the DNC rules. She did not change her position on the validity of these primaries until she found herself unexpectedly behind in the delegate count and desperately needed to claim the delegates that she had won in these unsanctioned contests. As her chances of winning the nomination became increasingly slim in recent weeks, we have been presented with threatening and desperate lines of reasoning for why these primary results should count as is. At the same time, Clinton and her surrogates continue to propose different metrics for determining who should win the nomination even though there is and has been a clearly defined process in place for several decades.

Please think about the implications of changing election rules after the fact. We have suffered through at least one stolen presidential election and the manipulation of untold numbers of Congressional and state elections through various vote tampering and voter intimidation schemes used by the Republicans and their allies. The American people (and especially Democratic voters) have lost faith in the integrity of the election process. The Clinton strategy to continually change the rules for determining the Democratic Party nominee sets a dangerous precedent that could lead to increasingly un-Democratic elections in the future if it is allowed to succeed. If anything, we need more transparency and methods of accountability in our elections in order to repair the damage done in recent years and to restore our confidence in the Government.

2. The Bosnia Fabrication / Exaggerated Experience Claims
Hillary fabricated a story about a dangerous, life-risking visit to Bosnia in order to gain stature as an experienced negotiator in international conflicts and war. While this type of embellishment can seem almost comical, it represents a willingness to distort reality in order to influence the public perception. This is the same type of distortion that the Bush administration used to justify the war in Iraq, although the magnitude of the lie is certainly on a different scale. The Bush administration falsified reports, cherry-picked intelligence, used unreliable sources, and employed fear-mongering tactics to convince the American public that our safety was at risk and as such, you were either with us or with the terrorists. The lies used by President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are impeachable offenses and should be condemned by all Americans. Sadly, the Clinton campaign seems to have shown a shocking willingness to employ the same tactics to create a more favorable reality and to rely on divide-and-conquer rhetoric to weaken opposition. Her attempts to frighten the American people by conjuring up 3 AM phone calls are bad enough, but her vote of confidence in John McCain over Barack Obama should be seen as treason against the Democratic Party.

3. NAFTA
Hillary lied about her position on NAFTA and used her lies in a calculated way to influence the Ohio primary. Recently released White House documents confirm that Hillary had been an active proponent of NAFTA prior to its passage, and she has continued to support it publicly in her speeches and memoir. However, while campaigning in Ohio, she claimed to have been privately against NAFTA during the Clinton presidency and believes that it should be rewritten to protect American jobs and workers. This type of maneuvering is reminiscent of the behind-closed-doors policy-making that the Bush administration has used during the past seven years. Specifically, Bush and Cheney have made policy decisions without providing transparency to Congress or the public, and President Bush has repeatedly ignored the rule of law by issuing signing statements and disregarding the parts of the laws that he doesn’t agree with. If we cannot trust Hillary to be truthful about her positions on critical legislative issues now, how can we trust that she will be truthful as president?

These are just three examples that illustrate the concerns we should have with a candidate who demonstrates a sense of entitlement to the nomination and is willing to lie, misrepresent, threaten, and divide in order to obtain the nomination. President Bush and the neoconservative movement have greatly harmed this country by the creation of an imperial-like presidency. This election is not just about whether a Democrat or Republican wins but if the checks and balances are restored to the three branches of government. The framers of the Constitution were in such fear of an imperial president that mechanisms for impeachment are prominently and explicitly included in the Constitution. If Hillary Clinton is willing to use lies and deceit to win the Democratic nomination, what assurances do we have that she will not continue to use them once she is president?
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/03/why-h ...

<snip>

"Her response to being caught lying to a military audience, when she invented a story about being under sniper fire in Bosnia, was to say it wasn't surprising she got some things wrong, seeing how she spoke millions of words every day. What a magnificent idea, that if you say lots of words some of them are bound to be fantastic lies. So if you listen carefully to horse-racing commentators they say things like "And it's Teddy's Boy still leading three furlongs out as they come up to the fourth last fence with Nip and Tuck two lengths behind by the way I fought a tiger once, punched it clean out and they're all safely over."

<lots more>
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/opinion/article3 ...