Worst Liar Ever or Just Living in the Past?

[Lucky 13]

So how bout this Snipergate scandal, huh? Pretty outrageous. The evidence is so overwhelmingly obvious that she lied, there leaves no doubt that the story is either made up deliberately for political gain or subconsciously fabricated coincidentally also for political gain. (The latter possibility requires a certain amount of suspension of disbelief to swallow considering it was written down in a prepared speech and repeated 4 different times.)

But WHY would she do it? Why would she lie KNOWING there were hundreds of witnesses to the event and video footage? "All politicians lie", while TRUE, is a WEAK defense at best. This has exploded into a major scandal to many people's surprise and whether Hillary supporters want to admit it or not. And many people seemed puzzled and frustrated as to why this won't just go away like so many allegations of politicians lying in years past.

<b>But that thinking discounts the role of new technology in the 21st century entirely and shows a profound lack of understanding of the age of new media.</b>

I think the real reason for her recent mis-step isn't that she is WORSE liar than politicians of old. It's that she and her campaign are stuck in the 90s. They used old 90-s style "big state" strategy - and it has failed her. They thought they could rely on their political clout from the 90s to persuade (or bully, depending who you ask) superdelegates and endorsers to lend her their support - and THAT has failed her. And her campaign's inability to adapt from 90s style media strategies to the new media of the 21st century has failed her, perhaps fatally.

Let's play make believe for a second. Let's assume all events happened a decade earlier. Let's assume Bill was actually president in the 80s and that's when Hillary took her Bosnia trip. Now it's the 90's and she makes up the sniperstory. Without having the access to video that the public now has thanks to YouTube and archived footage availability, probably a few people would write some letters. Maybe the pilot, some soldiers, a reporter or two will give their accounts of what happened - contradicting her statements. It might get some TV play, but most of the stories would be in print. How many times have you heard people contradict accounts of someone running for office? It comes down to one regular person's word against the word of a candidate for President. People brush it off as her political enemies rounding up people to say negative things about her. People WANT to give her the benefit of the doubt and don't want to believe she'd make such a thing up. What's more, there was time for damage control. People had a minimum of a few hours between when they got word that a story was going to print and when it actually hit the stands. There was time to create a damage control strategy. By the time the story breaks, the campaign has a canned response and looks cool and collected delivering the message. The story dies quickly and we move on to the next scandal.

But it's not the 90s! The public has unprecedented access to video and audio footage from media outlets and independent sources. Video is viral. One good scandalous video can get a million hits in 24 hours. It's OUT THERE and hundreds of thousands of people probably see the footage before her own campaign does. There's no time for damage control anymore. You're always playing catchup, which inevitably makes you look unprepared - and thus less believable. And the thing about video and audio evidence is that it's pretty damn hard to spin. Instead her just saying, "I'm sorry these soldiers account of the story were different than mine, but here's how I remember it happening..." and everyone taking her word because she's the FIRST LADY.... we see the video footage of her standing on the tarmac kissing an 8 year old girl and taking group photos with 7th graders. How do you spin that? Your version of the facts is completely different than the REALITY that we all see and can make our own judgments on. Video evidence trumps credibility - of which hers was somewhat shaky to begin with.

Do I think Hillary Clinton is the WORST LIAR in the history of political elections? Emphatically, NO. She's just the first to get MAJORLY SLAMMED by the age of new media. The public is not used to seeing this type of visually obvious lying and is predictably outraged. Anyone around politics for any length of time probably just finds this fucking comical... I certainly do.

But in the big picture, I just think it's further evidence that she and her campaign has been content to operate under the political rules of the past, the opposite of the CHANGE so many of us are seeking.

Just an observation.

[MethuenProgressive]

1. Barack "Gee whiz, I never knew Pastor Wright was a racist until I read about it in Jet" Obama?

Yep. He's the worse liar in the world.

[jakem]

2. nm

[Lucky 13]

4. ?

lieberman chaser?

[jakem]

5. oops, computer glitched, and i responded the wring post~

[samdogmom]

3. Astute observations!

Welcome to the new world, Hillary! You should polish your computer skills, you're a bit rusty and clearly out of touch with the way things work today.

By the way, Lucky 13--thanks for joining DU!

On Edit: The above posters are Hillary fans...they're out to destroy any criticism of their "girl"--just ignore them!