Clinton: "I was sleep-deprived, and I misspoke."

[WDIM]

On saying last week that she landed under sniper fire during a trip to Bosnia in 1996, when she was first lady:

"I was sleep-deprived, and I misspoke."

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/mostread/s_558930.html

She has said this more than once! So was she sleep deprived when she landed in Bosnia and just dreamed the whole thing?

[AngryAmish]

1. She just likes to make shit up

Deal with it.

[Maddy McCall]

5. Yeah, because campaigning 24/7 doesn't lead to sleep deprivation.

I'm surprised that both don't make more mistakes. Their schedules are grueling.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

13. The statement was prepared.

End of story.

[shadowknows69]

22. Come on, She gave a detailed story of this harrowing escape

It was a lie.

[VolcanoJen]

34. She made the same "sleep-deprived mistake" at least four different times.

On St. Patrick's Day, she made the "mistake" in direct response to a reporter asking her to try to gel her story with the one they were getting from Sinbad.

And still, she insisted to stick to the story and keep her fingers crossed that the truth would not emerge.

And for her to say "I'm human" is just insulting. Why not just say "I'm a simple caveman lawyer," it's every bit as laugh-inducing.

[Life Long Dem]

95. On Feb 29th in Waco Texas, get the video on youtube. She said the same thnig.

Do two wrongs make a right? LOL!

You can't remember an event wrong if it never happened.

[Moh96]

61. You cant be serious

[roguevalley]

65. correct me if I'm wrong but she wrote it in her book and she read it

off a prepared speech. that is deliberation. this is shit.

[Maddy McCall]

2. Has happened to me in the past. It's happened to Obama in the past...

I'd say that it's happened to everyone in the past.

[WDIM]

yeah lying about something multiple times is common....

for the Clintons...

[Maddy McCall]

9. Not common, but understandable to make mistakes.

I'd like to see any DUer try to handle either candidate's schedule and hold up as well.

[WDIM]

12. One time sure its a mistake.

But she has said the sniper fire story multiple times. Thats a lie. And now she is lying about a lie.

[Araxen]

29. It's the only thing Hillary is good at and

that is lying. She should seek help. She has a disease that needs to be cured.

[Schema Thing]

52. Actually no, even one time this story could not be a mistake.

A mistake would be to get details confused, not make up non-existent details.

[WDIM]

90. you're right it couldn't be a mistake.

I was just trying to give the other poster the benefit of the doubt.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

15. Did you not get a good night's sleep last night?

Because you're laying it on awful thick.

[goclark]

67. But she is the one that is ready for the Ring,ring,ring

:rofl:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

8. ORLY?

So you've been so sleep deprived you keep saying the same thing several times, on different days, and it effects your staff who print the same claims in press releases?

[Maddy McCall]

16. Wrong thread.

Here's the O'Reilly adoration thread.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5249734

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

36. HRC made same false claim in Feb - where she "remembers" it once more

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/3/25/105346/318/335/483775

It's becoming clear that Hillary Clinton has engaged in a deliberate pattern of false statements about her trip to Tuzla, Bosnia -- and now there's additional video evidence.

It comes from a February 29, 2008 campaign stop in Waco, Texas during which she told this version of her sniper fire tale:

One of the great honors of being First Lady and of being a senator is the time that I was privileged to spend with our troops here at home, in Iraq and Afghanistan, in Bosnia, Kosovo, and places around the world. I remember particularly a trip to Bosnia where the welcoming ceremony had to be moved inside because of sniper fire.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

84. Please don't distort Hillary's blatant lies with facts.

[Lucky 13]

NO. It has never happened to me....

... I have never once, in all my days and nights of sleep deprivation or stress, have I EVER "mis-spoke" and said that I was in a helicopter taking evasive manuevers and then running from the tarmac while taking sniperfire.

NEVER. NOT ONCE.

People who say they have gotten SHOT AT are not MIS-SPEAKING. It's not a gray area. You either DID or you DIDN'T. You either heard gun shots or didn't. You either ran or you didn't. It either actually happened, or you are LYING.

Also, MAYBE you could mis-speak on this issue once and get away with it. But she has had the same account numerous times. IT'S A LIE. And she believed we were too stupid to actually go back and look at a video tape. Insulting.

I don't understand how an intelligent person can look at this and not recognize her for the LIAR that she is! Come on, Maddy! Instead of blindly defending everything out of your candidate's mouth, can you allow for the POSSIBILITY that she has a problem with the truth? Take off the blinders folks!

[karynnj]

42. I can categorically say that no matter how sleep deprived

I was that I never made up an entire, elaborate, self-serving story and repeated it. (By the way, I bet most woman have experienced some period of sleep deprivation if they have more than one kid and no nanny. )

[VolcanoJen]

59. "**Everyone** lies about drawing sniper fire and running for cover"

:eyes: :eyes: :eyes:

[Moochy]

85. Not a lie... but maybe a Lifetime™; movie of the week?

A touching docu-drama about the First Lady and the First Daughter under heavy sniper fire in Bosnia!!!!!1111

[LoZoccolo]

60. You've had fixed psychotic delusions for several days because of sleep deprivation?

:wow:

Not even those two guys who stayed up for like ten or eleven days experienced symptoms like that after they got some sleep.

[sandnsea]

76. It has not, wake the goddamn hell up

How fucking many times are you going to let those two lie right to your face. How many scandals. How many corrupt cronies. How many wars. They are slime.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

3. "Let me make this perfectly clear..."

"I did not have military relations with that sniper, in Tuzla."

[AnarchoFreeThinker]

4. "I wuzzzjuss alittul beet drunk, two."

[Debi]

6. So, when it was placed in her prepared statements - was she sleep deprived

and she misswrote??? :shrug:

[DevonRex]

7. Maybe she's not so good at 3 a.m.

if she dreams up sniper fire when she's sleep deprived. Or did she misspeak because she was sleep deprived? Did she prepare the speech in her sleep then? Is her campaign staff also sleep deprived and that's why they're so nasty?

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

83. You get the "post of the day" award Jennifer. Very astute comment.

[VolcanoJen]

10. Full quote from Politico:

You know I have written about this and described it in many different settings and I did misspeak the other day. This has been a very long campaign. Occasionally, I am a human being like everybody else. The military took great care of us. They were worried about taking a first lady to a war zone and took some extra precautions and worried about all sorts of things. I have written about it in my book and talked about it on many other occasions and last week, you know, for the first time in 12 or so years, I misspoke.

Of course, the Obama camp, not being sleep-deprived, pounced to let the media know she'd made the comments about coming under sniper fire on at least four different occasions, not just "the other day."

The Clinton Camp should really get to work on their talking points here. She's digging herself deeper instead of climbing out. It's an amazing study in contrast, the way she's handling this damage control to the way Obama handled the aftermath of the Wright story.

[soleft]

45. Where's the sleep deprivation part?

I'm seeing sleep deprivation all over the board but don't see an actual quote with those words.

[VolcanoJen]

49. You can find it at the OP's link.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/mostread/s_558930.html

Clinton's 90-minute interview covered topics from pledged delegates to Iraq.
Among her statements this morning:

On saying last week that she landed under sniper fire during a trip to Bosnia in 1996, when she was first lady:

"I was sleep-deprived, and I misspoke."

I understand you can hear it in the KDKA recording of the interview, but unfortunately I can't listen to it until I get home.

[soleft]

51. Thanks

Is this as bad as I think it is?

[VolcanoJen]

58. It speaks poorly to her ability to conduct Damage Control at this stage in her campaign.

I'm shocked that Hillary would make this kind of, let's be honest, dumb political mistake. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

It's one thing to tell that yarn a few times on the campaign trail. But after Sinbad came out with his comments that disputed her version of events at Tuzla, I just cannot believe her staff sent her to that podium on St. Patrick's Day with prepared remarks instructing her to repeat her version instead of Sinbad's recollection. Sinbad, for crying out loud! Sinbad!!!!

It speaks volumes about her campaign staff. Have they never heard of YouTube? Did they really believe stuff that happened only 12 years ago was no longer available in news footage archives? Did they really believe you can amplify a claim that the First Lady of the United States drew sniper fire on a trip to Bosnia, and not expect a journalist or two to say, "Whaaaa....? I don't remember that. That would've been big news at the time, right?"

I'm shocked, to be honest. And instead of controlling the damage, they're sending her out to dig herself into a deeper hole without adequate (or even remotely reasonable) remarks. Sleep-deprivation Misspoke? Four different times? How do you "misspeak" the prepared remarks, for example?

The entire reason Hillary Clinton is losing the nomination is because she is running an abominable campaign. Her staff is awful, and they're just making it worse for her.

[soleft]

64. As much as she outrages and disappoints me

I still feel sorry for her. She's planned and waited her entire life for this moment. There were times I rooted for her and she almost had me. At this point I don't think either the party or the country can afford her.

[Shakespeare]

66. This post will be overlooked, but I agree--I think she "broke" in 1993.

I wish--really, really wish--she was running as the same person who started to fight for universal healthcare in 1993. That person is gone. She no longer exists.

I think the lesson she incorrectly took from that experience is that the only way to succeed is to triangulate. The only path is through political calculation. While I'm beginning to strongly feel that she's driven in part by selfish motives (a topic for another thread), I think more than anything else she's lost her political convictions and replaced them with cynicism and cover-your-ass (at any cost) disingenuousness. Almost ALL of her actions after 1993 speak to that.

Part of me feels sorry for her, and part of me is increasingly horrified by her (and her campaign's) behavior.

I didn't want to choose a candidate based on how much the other one repulsed me (I'm an agnostic Edwards supporter at this point), but the events of the last few weeks are certainly pushing me away from Clinton.

[Cha]

11. Isn't it a written statement and on video?

So did she miswrite too? And why am I saying misspoke when I know it's another one of her padded resume LIES?

[underpants]

14. Is it Miss or Ms. Poke?

I always get those confused

[ecstatic]

17. Inability to accept responsibility. Disgusting

and in the same interview she slimed Obama.

[wndycty]

18. She just lied again. . .its well known these were PREPARED COMMENTS!

:kick:

[Ichingcarpenter]

23. dupe n/t

.

[Ichingcarpenter]

25. PREPARED COMMENTS - and repeated 4 separate times

You can't lie yourself out of a lie.

[phrigndumass]

19. sleep-deprived

Next?

[leftofthedial]

20. wouldn't she be sleep-deprived at 3 AM?

Maybe she was sleep-deprived when she voted for the IWR or any of the times she voted to increase funding for the occupation of Iraq or for the PATRIOT Act . . .

Maybe she just needs a good long nap.

[underpants]

21. Ooooh

OUCH!

[meow mix]

24. she was just talking in her sleep?

:shrug:

[DearAbby]

26. Wished I had thought of the sleep-deprived excuse

as a kid. :evilgrin:


Say, I can use it when DearHubby asks about the extra expendatures, when he is balancing the check-book....yeah! That's the ticket....Honey, I dont remember buying that...I was sleep-deprived!!

[shadowknows69]

27. I oncew went 52 hours without sleep and acted in a musical play

Remembered all my lines and songs even. Can I be President??

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

86. I don't believe you, so the answer is yes!

[shadowknows69]

89. It is true

[City Lights]

28. New lies to cover old lies.

Ready to lie on day one!

Stop digging, Hillary, you're making it worse, and you're not fooling anyone.

[Ysabel]

30. oh that sounds just great on a resume'...

- she's pathetic...

[Bensthename]

31. This is a major incident. If she can't explain herself better she is done.

This is not a minor exaggeration or a "misspoken" statement. This is a huge lie if she was not shot at somewhere. And where is that somewhere and when?

She has to answer this or she is done.

[4themind]

32. "Ready to lie on day one"

lie down to lobbyists/insurance corporations/to the american people. Oh I'm sorry not "lie" misspeak repeatedly...that's it.

[WDIM]

44. Gotta keep the liars in office.

Gotta give Hillary props though she made me laugh.

"I was sleep deprived" I want that on a T-Shirt.

[Shakespeare]

33. How many times have we crowed over a Bush official getting busted for padding his (or her) resume?

I'm still not committed to either candidate (I was an Edwards supporter), but this really, really bothers me. She's been caught making multiple exaggerations about multiple claims in her political resume. This is NOT just one "oh, I was sleep-deprived" misstep. It's calculated, and she got caught in it.

What bothers me more is seeing other people here I like and respect trying to excuse it away. There IS no excuse for it. She fucked up. She is wrong to make claims that are clearly inflated to try and push herself as a good candidate on foreign policy.

She shouldn't have exaggerated, she shouldn't now be making excuses for those exaggerations, and nobody here should be defending her on that point. It's shameful.

[grantcart]

43. great point

[cooolandrew]

35. So sleep deprivation leads to random bouts of BS, intressting. HRC" that really happend"

[karynnj]

37. I remember how little a break she gave a fellow Democrat exhausted

from working for others who skipped a two letter word while reading a speech from a teleprompter. Here she made a whole story up out of whole cloth - and wants to be excused because she was sleep deprived?

[redqueen]

46. Good point. Wasn't Kerry campaigning at that time as well?

[karynnj]

53. Yes he was - he took on a tough schedule and was doing it with

commercial air flights - making it harder. The day before that appearance, as a favor to Lance Armstrong he had added an appearance at the LIVESTRONG conference as a favor to Lance Armstrong. His talk, to people dealing with cancer was awesome - especially as he is by all accounts who keeps personal things personal. He spoke of his experience as a son - when his dad was diagnosed and died of prostrate cancer and from his own experience - speaking very personally, honestly and emotionally. (The video is on JohnKerry.com, under multimedia, then it is the last entry under video.)

It was also clear from the CA video that he had a cold. Yet all he did was misread one word - and HRC said that was "inappropriate". Now, we are to forgive her making up a story that she repeated 4 times - because she was sleep deprived? I think all candidates function less well when sleep deprived - and I never saw any make up and repeat Walter Mitty like fantasies.

[Hav]

69. .

A good but sad point. He was working so hard to help other Dems in 2006 and then he, as a highly decorated Veteran himself, got accussed of insulting the troops. That made me so sick back then.

[karynnj]

74. Exactly

which is why I was happy to read of HRC and her people rushing to get HRC on a bill for a VA location in Texas that Kerry was on because they were concerned that he was in Texas speaking to people about that need ...... and Obama.

What I thought was sick was that HRC, who knew better, called it "inappropriate" buying into the RW echo chamber that it dissed the troops intentionally. No one would use the word "inappropriate" to refer to a tired guy skipping a 2 letter pronoun in a line included in the handout to the media. The audience got the idea and realized it like the jokes around it dealt with Bush.

Now, that is the type of error EVERYBODY makes when sleep deprived. The other extreme contrast is that we never heard from Kerry the story of saving Rassmann or that he crested an innovative solution to the ambushes on the canals, sold his peers on the idea ahead of time and successfully led them using it when the circumstances were right. He could have told us heroic stories, she can't - yet she made this up, while he allowed others to commend his real bravery.

I suspect the veterans and troops are smart enough to know which of these 2 has been an advocate for them for around 4 decades.

[karynnj]

75. Exactly (and her actions destroy any sympathy I might have had for her)

which is why I was happy to read of HRC and her people rushing to get HRC on a bill for a VA location in Texas that Kerry was on because they were concerned that he was in Texas speaking to people about that need ...... and Obama.

What I thought was sick was that HRC, who knew better, called it "inappropriate" buying into the RW echo chamber that it dissed the troops intentionally. No one would use the word "inappropriate" to refer to a tired guy skipping a 2 letter pronoun in a line included in the handout to the media. The audience got the idea and realized it like the jokes around it dealt with Bush.

Now, that is the type of error EVERYBODY makes when sleep deprived. The other extreme contrast is that we never heard from Kerry the story of saving Rassmann or that he crested an innovative solution to the ambushes on the canals, sold his peers on the idea ahead of time and successfully led them using it when the circumstances were right. He could have told us heroic stories, she can't - yet she made this up, while he allowed others to commend his real bravery.

I suspect the veterans and troops are smart enough to know which of these 2 has been an advocate for them for around 4 decades.

[Tatiana]

79. Disheartening, but valid point. Thanks for reminding us. n/t

[beachmom]

80. Actually, Kerry had no telepromptor, just note cards, for which it

was OBVIOUS if you watch the video, that he lost his place.

Anyway, good point on Hillary. We should afford her NOTHING based on her past despicable behavior.

[karynnj]

88. Thanks - I knew he was reading it - which he usually doesn't do and just assumed it was a

teleprompter.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

38. Talk about a stretch! That's a streeeetch Lie-mousine.

Sure, we have probably all been sleep-deprived, had memories distorted, misspoke, etc. But, it's pretty difficult to not remember if you were being shot at no matter how sleepy you are. It's not like she can't remember what shade of lipstick she was wearing that day.

[Emillereid]

39. I've seen lack of sleep cause many things - but making up a fictional account is not one of them.

Unless she wants us to believe she was SOOOO sleep deprived that she was hallucinating.

[Rob Gregory Browne]

40. I LIVE with constant sleep deprivation...

...and, despite this, I have never imagined that I was under sniper fire and have never misspoken about it. About the worst that happens is that I get very sleepy during periods of inactivity.

I would be happy to give Clinton the benefit of the doubt, but this explanation just smacks of desperation. Why can't she simply say, "You know, I got a little enthusiastic there and I exaggerated. It was silly of me and I apologize. When you run a presidential campaign you sometimes say things you regret. This is one of them. Just think of it as a fishing story. Yes, I caught a fish, but it wasn't quite as big as I pretended it was."

[Emillereid]

41. I've seen lack of sleep cause many things - but making up a fictional account is not one of them.

Unless she wants us to believe she was SOOOO sleep deprived that she was hallucinating. In which case I certainly don't want her answering any phone call at 3 am.

[DefenseLawyer]

47. Clinton: "Looks like I picked a bad week to stop sniffing glue"

[Perky]

48. Is she going to tear up again?

[Alter Ego]

50. No, no, no, Hillary.

Being "sleep-deprived" and "misspeaking" is like when you accidentally call your teacher "mom".

You lied. There is a difference. You LIED.

[Indenturedebtor]

54. Well here you go

Here's an article about psychosis in sleep deprived people.

She must not have slept for at least a week to be hallucinating like that. Or as is well known, she must be predisposed to psychosis. Chemical changes in the brain due to drug use, stress, sleep deprivation etc can bring out innate psychotic conditions such as compulsive confabulation ;)

SNIP

-------
Lt. Cmdr. John J. Ross of the U.S. Navy Medical Neuropsychiatric Research Unit in San Diego, who was called in by Gardner's worried parents to monitor his condition, tells a quite different story (Ross, 1965). Gardner's symptoms that Ross reported included:


Day 2: Difficulty focusing eyes and signs of astereognosis (difficulty recognizing objects only by touch).

Day 3: Moodiness, some signs of ataxia (inability to repeat simple tongue twisters).

Day 4: Irritability and uncooperative attitude, memory lapses and difficulty concentrating. Gardner's first hallucination was that a street sign was a person, followed by a delusional episode in which he imagined that he was a famous black football player.

Day 5: More hallucinations (e.g., seeing a path extending from the room in front of him down through a quiet forest). These were sometimes described as "hypnagogic reveries" since Gardner recognized, at least after a short while, that the visions were illusionary in nature.

Day 6: Speech slowing and difficulty naming common objects.

Day 7 and 8: Irritability, speech slurring and increased memory lapses.

Day 9: Episodes of fragmented thinking; frequently beginning, but not finishing, his sentences.

Day 10: Paranoia focused on a radio show host who Gardner felt was trying to make him appear foolish because he ws having difficulty remembering some details about his vigil.

Day 11: Expressionless appearance, speech slurred and without intonation; had to be encouraged to talk to get him to respond at all. His attention span was very short and his mental abilities were diminished. In a serial sevens test, where the respondent starts with the number 100 and proceeds downward by subtracting seven each time, Gardner got back to 65 (only five subtractions) and then stopped. When asked why he had stopped he claimed that he couldn't remember what he was supposed to be doing.
--------------

http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/display/article/10168/54471?pageNumber=2

:crazy:

[Az_lefty]

55. there was a time when I respected Hillary...

always thought she had more class, character and substance than Bill ever dreamed of. She's now proving herself to be very much like him. The narcissistic behavior, the constant stream of lies and no conscious what so ever...I am totally done with her.

[goclark]

68. Pinocchio of Bosnia

Ring, Ring, Ring


Please don't let her ever pick up that phone.

An experienced speaker would make sure that they did not speak off scriptin that state of mind.

And experienced speaker and leader would have staff members ready to give them a signal when I needed to shut up.

[beachmom]

56. She related this story THREE TIMES, once on Feb. 29th. If she

makes the same "mistakes" over and over again due to sleep deprivation then she is not fit to be the President.

[totodeinhere]

57. This one has the BS meter off the charts.

[ladywnch]

62. i remember her using the "sleep deprived" excuse once before.

so how do we know that when she gets the 3am phone call she won't be sleep deprived and same something that starts WWIII

[Kurovski]

63. It's the McCain defense!

Dr. K recommends more naps.

[my3boyz]

70. HAHAHA That is some funny shit! I was wondering what

she would eventually come up. LOL

[scheming daemons]

71. it was typed on her PREPARED remarks.... it wasn't "off the cuff".... and therefore, not a "mistake"

...she's lying again.


Digging a deeper hole.

[DrFunkenstein]

78. Prepared Remarks Scrubbed By Her Campaign Staff

More like delegate deprived. She's done.

[PoliticalAmazon]

72. WashingtonPost called her sniper lie a "4 Pinocchio" n/t

[Johnny__Motown]

73. It was 3 am and the phone kept ringing.....

[CreekDog]

77. four times?

:shrug:

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

81. No, she's brain-cell deprived. It was a stupid lie and she got caught. Now she's making it worse.

[Moochy]

82. Sleep deprived ? more like Truth deprived...

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

87. Hillary reminds of that line from the old Who song, "Won't Get Fooled Again":

Meet the new boss . . . same as the old boss.

Do we really want this lying sack of #$@! in the White House?! I think not. Eight years of Bush is enough! Time to try a different approach.

GObama!

[Milo_Bloom]

91. Aren't people usually sleep deprived when answering the phone at 3:00AM?

Well, we certianly now have the answer to who we wouldn't want answering that phone.

[NoBushSpokenHere]

92. Grave Mistake - I would have rather she admit she was lying

I am totally speechless on this one. Scratching my head wondering if I am so sleep deprived I have misread this! Now I have been sleep deprived in the past but ... never to the point of landing under sniper fire, ducking, running, etc. Why did she just say ALRIGHT I LIED! She may have been able to at least go out of this race with some dignity in tact? Well, just a little?

Thing about it is... we want our Presidents to be "Supermen and Superwomen" We do want whomever answers the phone at 3 am to be able to answer it and be intelligible. We don't want someone who might just be sleep deprived and imagining sniper attacks at that very moment.

EGADSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS I can't believe she said that...still scratching my head...

[McCamy Taylor]

93. Gore Is a Liar

[Shakespeare]

94. Why do you keep posting this? n/t

[Political Heretic]

96. It isn't "misspeaking" when you make up explicit details

Sorry... its not an accident when you say you remember landing under gunfire and running off the tarmac (no idea how that's spelled).

That's not a whoopse misstatement. That's a complete fabrication, pure and simple.

Not only that, but the Clinton campaign totally defended her original comments - REPEATEDLY - until video surfaced... now its "misspeaking"

[Perry Logan]

97. Nota bene: the people who most vehemently call the Clintons liars are certifiable liars...

...with a hell of an axe to grind. That's how it looks to me.

Given the sordid nature of the Clintons' critics, it's flat-out irrational to accept any criticism of them. The waters of information have been poisoned beyond belief.