One of the constant complaints about George W. Bush is that he lied to get us into war in Iraq. It's a debatable claim, but you have to respect the desire for total honesty from the chief executive. Yet many of those who make that accusation are willing, even eager to put into the White House a candidate whose history of lies and deception is so lengthy and pervasive that even arch-liar Richard Nixon looks amateurish by comparison. More and more evidence is coming to light that not only is Hillary Clinton a chronic liar, but that her lies and ethical breaches are so frequent and often so unnecessary that her urge to lie may be an uncontrollable pathological condition.
The Nixon connection is particularly appropriate. Towards the end of his time in office Nixon had reached the point where he could hardly tell reality from fantasy and he was buried under a mountain of lies, crimes and coverups, exposed to the public by the work of the Special Prosecutor, Justice Department investigators and the hearings of the Judiciary Committee. And one of those who brought Nixon down, on the staff of the Judiciary Committee was a young, politically ambitious lawyer named Hillary Rodham. Her zeal to destroy Nixon was extraordinary, but she seems to have fallen into the trap of those who have great hatreds by becoming exactly what she hated most.
The history of Hillary Clinton's lies and unethical conduct has been well documented over the years, from covering for her priapic husband to the Whitewater, Travelgate and Rose law firm scandals. More recently a lot of attention has been paid to her lies about being under fire in Bosnia and even about what Chelsea was doing on 9/11. But the most recent revelation may be the most troubling because it shows that her pattern of unethical conduct and lying to cover it up goes back farther and is a more basic element of her character than anyone had realized.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - bliffle
Clinton appears to be a fabulist, like GWB, inventing the story of her life as needed, not exactly lying, tho of course it's not true, but rather writing a novel about what she dreams her life to have been and to be. I've watched GWB speak and do that while he carefully judges what will sound good instead of what is real.
But my main objection to both of them is that they fail to do the jobs they were hired to do. Neither one seems to read the homework material and neither seems to seek expert advice but only to consult political finaglers.
Both should be fired for malingering.
2 - Dave Nalle
There's a difference between the lying for self-promotion which Clinton has certainly done plenty of and the malicious scheming and deliberate abuse of power we're talking about here. Clinton's poorly thought out, pathological lies are a symptom of a problem which can also mainfest itself as something much worse.
Dave
3 - Pablo
Dave,
This is one of the very few articles on which I agree with you. I would like to offer to you or others the case of Peter Paul and Mrs. Clinton, which I believe if she is nominated, will come to haunt her like like nothing else.
Paul and Clinton
4 - Dr Dreadful
At the Martin Luther King memorial event in Memphis today, Clinton said she'd met him when she was a teenager. Did she make that up as well?
5 - Dave Nalle
Interesting question, Dr. D. On the surface that's exactly the kind of lie she's been caught telling in the past. As far as timing goes, she's at least the right age to have been a teen when King was active. Anything beyond that would be awfully hard to prove or disprove. Did she provide any more details on how they met?
Dave
6 - Dr Dreadful
The BBC report I read just said that she was 14 at the time. As you say, impossible to substantiate, especially if she was just a face in the crowd.
7 - troll
dreadful - she was hatched in '47...
the problem with Hillary is not that she is a lying scheming politician...it's that she has no belly button
8 - Dan Miller
Senator Clinton, like the Energizer Bunny, just keeps going on and on and on. This from the NY Times today. Just as she is ever ready to answer the three AM phone, Senator Clinton is everready to fabricate and embellish stories to promote her candidacy. The funny (pitiful?) thing is, she does it so often and so poorly that any credibility she may once have had is shot.
Nothing new or startling, just more and more of the same.
Dan Miller
9 - Dave Nalle
When I was 14 I met Richard Nixon...or so I claim. I can at least prove that Nixon and I were in the same relatively small and obscure place at the same time. I could describe what Nixon was wearing, but since he wore identical blue suits every day that wouldn't be much in the way of proof.
I wonder what Clinton could come up with if challenged.
Dave
10 - Jim Bean
F U C K CLINTON
11 - Dan Miller
Dave,
The "truth" is whatever can't be disproven to the satisfaction of my most rabid supporters. Also, there are definitional issues involved. "When I was 14 . . ." can refer to chronological age, or mental age. Not only that, but it was a long time ago and I may intentionally have misspoken slightly. Or, "14" might be a typo, and what I may have meant was "24." Hell, back then I wasn't keeping precise daily records. Moreover, the verb "met" is very ambiguous, and can mean very different things to different people at different times and in different places, just like "is" and "sex."
Senator Clinton's PR staff might come out with something like this:
"Senator Clinton vividly recalls having met Mr. Nixon when she was very young. Now, many years later, her recollection of the event has dimmed. It was not all that important way back then, and is of no significance at all now. We do know for certain that at some time in her distant youth, they were in the same small room at the same time. To suggest that Senator Clinton sought to fabricate a meeting with Mr. Nixon, a matter which is totally irrelevant to any issue in this campaign, is specious, unkind, and very distracting from the critical issues upon which the campaign should focus."
Dan
12 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Shavua tov,
Interesting read, Dave. Looks like those years in DC are paying off. You have handed Obama a silver cross and golden nails with which to crucify Clinton when the time comes. Trust me, his hatchet men are looking for stories like yours to help him out. If she actually does get the nomination, or get the VP spot on the Democratic ticket from a very foolish Obama, you've also handed McCain a silver cross with golden nails.
Elsewhere I predicted that whatever else happens, Hillary Rodham Clinton will not become president.
13 - Dr Dreadful
Well, according to Wikipedia, the FBI began wiretapping King in 1961, when Hillary was 14, so in theory, anyone bored enough and waving the Freedom of Information Act might be able to go back through those tapes and pick up some hard confirmation one way or the other...
"Hi, Mr King, you may not know me, but I'm going to be President one day and..."
:-)
14 - Dave Nalle
I have to agree, Rudy. There are just too many skeletons in her closet. More and more of the leftist elite are fleeing from her and turning to Obama.
Then the fun begins, because Obama has plenty of his own skeletons too.
Dave
15 - Arch Conservative
With an impending Clinton loss in the Democratic nomination process we are going to have a truly bizarre situation. For the first time in history the Clintons will be covertly actively aiding the vast right wing conspiracy that they once railed about.
Osama Obama, more than any member of the GOP could ever hope to, has royally screwed the Clintons. His candidacy is the equivalent of the world's biggest proverbial monkey wrench and it was aimed straight at the queen. Obama Bin Laden's candidacy is the singular reason that there will be no coronation party for her majesty. By succeeding at defeating her highness in the Democratic primaries/caucuses he has also served to paint the world's biggest bullseye on his back and Billary will shortly be taking aim.
Oh sure the Clintons will publicly claim be supporting Obama as he is offered up for slaughter in November but we all know better than that don't we folks. It's not as if we just met the Clinton's yesterday. No we know better. The Clintons are used to getting their way. They're used to steamrolling over everyone in their path and having those that they call friends take the fall for them. The only problem is that B. Hussein Obama Osama Rama Lama Ding Dong Laden did not get the memo that he was supposed to stand down as her majesty walked down the aisle to a new 21st century Camelot. Now the Clintons are going to be out for his blood at all costs. There is no doubt that the Clintons only reason for getting out of bed in the morning after the convention will be to run black ops behind the scenes so that they can fuck Obama as hard as he fucked them. The Clintons only care about one thing and that is themselves. Anyone who hasn't realized this should be committed immediately.
I'm not crazy about Mccain as president but I'm hoping he has finally seen the light and will pick Mitt Romney. After that....well Mccains's old so we'll just see.....
In the meantime I'm certainly taking great enjoyment in watching Mr. Empty platitudes no experience Hussein in the Democratic membrane piss all over the Clinton's parade. And I will also enjoy the fact that as I lay down to sleep in July, August, Sept, and Oct I know that in some dimly lit room at a Clinton campaign office Hillary and Bill in their typical fashion of revealing their true selves when the cameras are not running will be throwing their usual screaming, profanity laced angry temper tantrums...only this time instead of sending their henchmen to attack the vast right wing conspiracy that I'm apparently a part of they will be going after Obama.
16 - Baritone
"she ought to be automatically disqualified from any serious consideration for the presidency or any other public office."
So, you would deny Clinton due process? Interesting. By what legal process would you suggest that such automatic disqualification be effected?
B-tone
17 - Dave Nalle
I didn't say anything about a formal disqualification. Any crimes were long enough ago that they can't be prosecuted. I was thinking more in terms of treating her the same way we do perennial candidate Lyndon Larouche and any other power mad marginal candidate.
Dave
18 - Baritone
Perhaps you should have chosen your words more carefully.
I find it disingenuine and ironic that those who populate this bastion of conservative vitriol make such liberal use of inuendo and half truths.
Where does one go to find Hillary's rap sheet? What is the latest count of her convictions for all of these supposed heinous crimes against god and country? In taking stock of many of the allegations against her, one must consider both the source and the motivations of the, uh, allegators. (Ha,ha)
Certainly, if one throws enough shit against the wall, some of it will undoubtedly stick. But who in the national political spectrum including McCain, has a spotless wall? As I've noted before here and elsewhere, the hatred for both of the Clintons is so virulent amongst certain people that her most verbal detractors will go to any lengths to discredit them, even to the extent of practicing pseudo-psychology.
To compare Clinton to Nixon is absured. Nixon was pathological, a neurotic paranoid. (There's my two cents worth of psycho babble.) He was a loose cannon who wreaked havoc on the Constitution going back to his halcion days on the House Committee on Unamerican Activities.
At this juncture it appears that Clinton's hope of gaining the Dem's nomination is dwindling. Hell, most of you "right and tight" Republicans should hope that Clinton does get the nomination. That may well be McCain's only hope. Obama has the potential of sweeping into the WH in an unprecidented landslide. A McCain campaign against Hillary would doubtless be more tooth and nail, more down and dirty. Attacking Obama would be a far more delicate and difficult problem for McCain.
At any rate, it's likely that McCain has his own gaggle of skeletons, his own shit spots, that will be dangled before the electorate to consider. His wall is likely just as sullied as Clinton's or Obama's.
B-tone
19 - Arch Conservative
"Obama has the potential of sweeping into the WH in an unprecidented landslide."
Have you been buildiing model airplanes with all the windows closed again Bariton?
Obama has gotten a free ride until this whole "I'm not a racist I'm just longtime friends with a racist preacher who makes a lot of good points," fiasco came along.
I'm not just saying this because I'm a republican but the damage the democrats are doing to each other isn't that easily repaired before Nov.
Mccain has demonstarted his crossover appaeal much to the chagrin of many of the gop base but if he can mend those fences by picking a solid conservative VP by Nov then the Democrats are in deep shit.....But hey there's still the chance the Dem's prayers could be answered and the economy will completely tank or the American death toll in Iraq could begin to rise again.
20 - Baritone
I believe that far too much has and is being made of the Rev. Wright affair, and the supposed division amongst the Dems owing to the protracted Clinton/Obama campaigns.
Voters tend to have short memories. By the end of August, most people won't even remember what most of these flaps were about.
No doubt it is your hope that McCain will gain a great advantage over all this, and he may do so in the short term. But when the campaign begins in earnest come September, all previous bets will be off. Should Obama be the Dem's candidate, it is very possible that a ground swell of enthusiasm will materialize including a large number of young voters who have been coming out of the wood work in support of Obama.
Obviously, anything can happen, but I honestly doubt that McCain will find the sailing nearly so smooth as you apparently believe. McCain will likely prove to have his own set of monkeys on his back.
And I must say, that if McCain does win, we can likely kiss a few thousand more of our sons and daughters goodbye to feed the Iraqi beast, and we will have a sitting president who admittedly has no clue about how to handle the economy which may well tank in the coming months. George Bush's legacy will rightly hang around McCain's neck like a ball and chain.
B-tone
21 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
It's been painful reading the way you fine gentlemen have been slinging mud at each other on behalf of people who do not give a damn about you at all.
Any politician who expects to make it to the top of the heap in any political system has to have a liberal dose of "yay me, fuck you!" in his personality. This has nothing to do with his politics; it is just the price of success. The trick is to be "aw shucksy" enough to hide the ego and arrogance - or in the alternative, to be able to make points so well that one forgives the ego and arrogance.
This means that every politician succeeds on shattering the dreams of others, and makes enemies in the process. This is true for all of the "candidates" (if one wishes to really stretch the word) for president of the United States this election cycle.
Of course, if you enjoy slinging mud at each other for no good reason, don't let me stand in the way. Have a goyisher good time!
But I stand by my prediction that Hillary Rodham Clinton will not become president of the United States.
22 - Baritone
Ruvy,
I think most of us know of what you speak. I don't think anyone here, regardless of which side we may be on, believes that ANY political candidate at ANY time represents our deliverence. I venture the same to be true in Israel.
That politicians - especially those with aspirations for high office - are basically a huge load of ego pretty much goes with the territory. It's the nature of the beast. I will likely vote for Obama if he should be the Dem candidate. If it's Hillary, I'll vote for her despite your dire predictions for her. It would have to be a strange world indeed for me to vote for McCain. Regardless, though, I hardly expect to be living in the land of M&H should my vote prove to be prophetic.
It has oft been said that every nation has the government it deserves, and I think that is essentially true. In the case of the U.S. the system is so huge, the stakes so high, that most of us don't really know what the fuck is going on most of the time. We try to fathom what is what, but I believe most of us are painfully aware that we only get glimpses of the truth from odd angles at unexpected moments. Politics is politics. Platitudes are largely meaningless. There are three hundred million people or there abouts in this country, all with differing points of view, and most with little real knowledge and even less power to promulgate positive change. It sucks, but what are you going to do? Go fly a kite? I guess that's better than getting on a plane.
B-tone
23 - Tony
All of you Republicans who are ripping Obama for this Rev. Wright thing are so off base its disgusting.
John McCain is friends with Jerry Fallwell and Pat Robertson. Here's what the two of them had to say about September 11th.
"I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'" Fellow evangelist Pat Robertson concurred with his sentiment. -- wikipedia.org
You're going to rip this Reverend Wright guy for saying the he thinks that many of America's policies are anti-christian (thou shall not KILL anyone?) and yet Republicans are all good with McCain speaking at Falwell's college or saying, on Meet the Press that he no longer considered Falwell an "agent of intolerance."
When are Republicans going to understand that its ok to understand that Bush are McCain are not real Republicans and it is not necessary to buy into everyone single ounce of the party tag line to the very last letter.
24 - Bennett
Don't worry Tony, the polls I've heard make it clear that this is a non issue except to the virulent anti-Obama folks. Big surprise.
The way he handled it diffused the situation as far as most Americans are concerned. Of course there are folks that will parse every sentence of his speech on race and find grave fault, but they aren't the ones who will be voting for a Democrat come November.
25 - Baritone
I agree with both Tony and Bennett. (Does that make them collectively Tony Bennett?) What a surprise, right?
That white conservatives love to go crazy if a black person says or does anything that might be taken as even remotely racist is a load of crap. Wright's comments may be "out there," but whites who believe that racism is no longer an issue, that blacks should consider the fight for equality over and won, don't understand much. Blacks still have a good deal to be pissed about. If someone goes off on a public tirade now and again, all things considered, they're probably still entitled. To point fingers and lay blame at Obama's feet is bogus.
And of course, Falwell was and Robertson remains an idiot. McCain's acceptance of their idiocy to gain christian right votes is far worse than Obama's connection to Rev. Wright, whose more controversial statements Barack disavows.
B-tone