Bill Clinton outright lied today about Hillary's death-defying Bosnia trip

And it's the same outright lie the Clinton campaign has been repeating over and over, which means it's a talking point lie. Here is what Bill Clinton claimed today:

"And, you know. I got tickled the other day. A lot of the way this whole campaign has been covered has amused me. But there was a lot of fulminating because Hillary, one time late at night when she was exhausted, misstated and immediately apologized for it, what happened to her in Bosnia in 1995. Did y'all see all that? Oh, they blew it up.

That's a lie. Hillary actually "misspoke" four times over four months. Then the campaign had their surrogates and press staff fan out in order to defend Hillary's lie as the truth. Now repeated members of the Clinton campaign have claimed that Hillary simply misspoke "once." It's a flat-out lie. They know it's a lie. But they seem to think that you're so stupid, you won't notice. Amazing. And what is he talking about "late at night"? Late at night? Uh, when was Hillary talking about Bosnia "late at night?" I mean, now we're not just lying, but getting into some real detailed lies. (Not to mention, so Bill is admitting that Hillary isn't really on her game "late at night." Does 3am count as "late at night"?)

Let's recap:

On December 29th, the New York Times reported that Clinton said "I was so honored to be able to travel around the world representing our country. You know, going to places that often times were, you know, not necessarily a place that a president could go. We used to say in the White House that if a place was too dangerous, too small or too poor, send the first lady. So, I had the time of my life. I was the first, you know, high- profile American to go into Bosnia after the peace accords were signed because we wanted to show that the United States was 100 percent behind the agreement. We wanted to make it clear to the Bosnians of all backgrounds. Plus we wanted to thank our American military and our allies for a great job. So, we landed in one of those corkscrew landings and ran out because they said there might be sniper fire. I don't remember anybody offering me tea on the tarmac. We got there and went to the base where our soldiers were and I went out to a lot of the forward operating bases to thank our young men and women in uniform and to thank the Europeans, including the Russians who were part of that effort."

Hillary repeated these claims at a rally on February 29th: "At the rally, she belittled the idea that Mr. Obama's 2002 speech 'at an antiwar rally' prepared him to serve as commander in chief. She said he was 'missing in action' on the recent Senate vote on Iran and as chairman of a subcommittee responsible for NATO policy in Afghanistan. Contrasting that with her own experience, she evoked foreign battlefields, recalling a trip to Bosnia as first lady, when the welcoming ceremony 'had to be moved inside because of sniper fire.' She said she had traveled to more than 80 countries and was 'on the front lines' as the United States made peace in Bosnia and Northern Ireland and helped save refugees from ethnic cleansing in Kosovo."

In a speech on March 17th, Hillary said, in prepared remarks: "I certainly do remember that trip to Bosnia, and as Togo said, there was a saying around the White House that if a place was too small, too poor, or too dangerous, the president couldn't go, so send the First Lady. That's where we went. I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base. But it was a moment of great pride for me to visit our troops, not only in our main base as Tuzla, but also at two outposts where they were serving in so many capacities to deactivate and remove landmines, to hunt and seek out those who had not complied with the Dayton Accords and put down their arms, and to build relationships with the people that might lead to a peace for them and their children."

AP also reported that right after her speech, Clinton reaffirmed the account of running from the plane to the cars when she was asked about it during a news conference. She said was moved into the cockpit of the C-17 cargo plane as they were flying into Tuzla Air Base. 'Everyone else was told to sit on their bulletproof vests,' Clinton said. 'And we came in, in an evasive maneuver. ... There was no greeting ceremony, and we basically were told to run to our cars. Now, that is what happened.'" Read the rest of this post...

Coming to an airline near you - mobile phone rage

The news of Europe allowing mobile phones on flights is painful news for frequent fliers. Cramming so many people into a small space (and giving individuals less and less space) and then throwing phones in to the mix is a recipe for disaster. The trains in France offer phone and phone-free zones and in general it works pretty well. The Eurostar between Paris and London is generally terrible with every bumpkin who gets on finding the need to broadcast "the train is leaving" or their sordid personal escapades at screaming level. We all use our mobile phones from time to time but most of us have the common courtesy to leave others in peace and head to the end of the train or speak quietly. Obviously some can't manage such a difficult task and force the trains (and soon planes) to issue strict guidelines.

Mobile phone rage, coming to the skies soon so the airlines can figure out a way to generate revenue since generating revenue from their core business seems to be asking too much. Read the rest of this post...

My photos from Italy

A number of you asked to see my photos from my recent trip to Italy (I was there doing a series of talks and lectures about how we use the Internet for blogging and the elections). Rather than post a gazillion photos, you can check them out on my Flickr account here. Enjoy. Read the rest of this post...

Who still thinks the tax 'rebate' is going to work?

The US economy is so far beyond dishing out checks for a few hundred bucks. Wall Street and the GOP made a royal mess of things and it's so obvious that the checks in the mail are only going to help people pay off credit card debt or pay for necessities such as energy if not food. I would hardly expect anything more from McCain who foolishly (parrot-like, in fact) suggests "tax cuts and less regulation" are the answer, but the Democrats need to wake up.

There are a number of possibilities that are out there such as re-building the nations infrastructure that the GOP has let crumble. It's not glamorous but bringing it into the modern world is necessary after budget cuts. Maybe it's something else but with the problems ahead and the need to get real money (not tax cuts for Ferrari purchases) moving for regular people. Just imagine what we could have done without the war in Iraq but even with it (for now) something serious needs to be done. Read the rest of this post...

Sophisticated neoconservatism

Michael Ledeen is not an obscure foreign policy figure. He's a resident scholar at AEI (a leading conservative think tank), an editor at National Review (a leading conservative magazine), a former employee at CSIS (another major think tank), and he reportedly has had the ear of the White House for years. A prominent neoconservative, he was supposedly the only foreign policy expert regularly consulted by Karl Rove.

This is what he thinks is hilarious, below the caption "How do you tell if it's a Persian cat???":


Ladies and gentlemen, your very serious conservative foreign policy commentariat. Read the rest of this post...

Condi Rice might be interested in veep slot?

Well that would be interesting, since there are persistent rumors pertaining to why Rice has never been married. Will the GOP make history in more ways than one (or two, actually)? Read the rest of this post...

Are you better off now than you were four years ago?

Reagan asked this question during the 1980 election cycle and the results were devastating for the Democrats. The statistics for the poor and middle class in the US just get worse by the day and remember, McCain openly admits he knows nothing about economics other than what he read in his good buddy Alan Greenspan's book. Yikes, as if anyone wants to be associated with the man who led the US into three bubbles including this nasty one. While life is good for Wall Street, it's not quite the Champagne lifestyle for everyone else.

It found that a majority of Americans said they have not progressed in the past five years. One in four, or 25 percent, said their economic situation had not improved, while 31 percent said they had fallen backward. Those numbers together are the highest since the survey question was first asked in 1964. Among the middle class, 54 percent said they had made no progress (26 percent) or fallen back (28 percent).

Read the rest of this post...

Why does Joe Lieberman hate America? He ranked Iraqi government's progress ahead of U.S. government

I don't think I've ever heard anyone say that the Iraqi government was more successful than the U.S. government at anything -- until Tuesday's hearing.

Joe Lieberman praised the Iraqis at the expense of his own government: "Hey, let's be honest about this. The Iraqi political leadership has achieved a lot more political reconciliation and progress since September then the American political leadership has." Check out the video.

Like his pals, Bush and McCain, Lieberman has a funny way of measuring progress. As for all that reconciliation, progress and praise for the Iraqis, I live in Washington, DC and I don't recall any recent mortar attacks or militia crackdowns or soldiers engaged in armed clashes:

American and Iraqi troops clashed with gunmen in the cleric's Baghdad stronghold of Sadr City for a third day running on Tuesday, part of an upsurge in fighting that is likely to color two days of testimony to Congress by U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and top commander, General David Petraeus.

An Iraqi cameraman working for Reuters in Sadr City was lightly wounded by shrapnel in what witnesses said was a U.S. air strike in the slum.

Lieutenant-Colonel Steven Stover, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said a total of four Hellfire missiles were fired at gunmen and mortar crews in Sadr City in three separate air strikes. He estimated 12 gunmen had been killed.

A health official said 10 people had been killed and 61 wounded.

Yeah, that's what was happening while Lieberman was singing the praises of the Iraqi government while trashing his own. Read the rest of this post...

Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam

We like Sam. Read the rest of this post...

Two days of testimony, no closer to sanity on Iraq

General Petraeus, commander of US forces in Iraq, and US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker just spent two days on the Hill testifying before various Congressional committees. The spinning and misdirection required by members of this administration to make their policies appear even minimally rational continues to astound, and this latest round of dog-and-pony show didn't change that in the slightest.

It's unbelievably frustrating and depressing for those of us who closely follow this stuff to watch two well-educated, highly competent, patriotic Americans sit before Congress and the American public and dissemble, either for political reasons or because they simply don't have an accurate understanding of the situation. Petraeus said he wouldn't consider reinstating the surge, which flies in the face of administration claims that troop levels are determined on the ground (if we won't raise troop levels if "necessary" and won't reduce them even after these alleged security gains, what the hell determines the force structure?), and Crocker pretended that Iran isn't the main supporter of the political/militia group propping up our main man in Baghdad (ISCI/Badr and Maliki, respectively), just as two examples.

There were some good questions, and Senators Webb, Biden, Obama, and Clinton all demonstrated facility with complex issues, and even House members, usually less incisive than their Senate colleagues simply because they have fewer staffers to write questions and prep responses, did a good job. I mean, ultimately it isn't that hard to ask tough questions, considering how intellectually bankrupt the administration approach continues to be. But I doubt the past two days changed anything -- Republicans largely screwed up the facts and called Americans with doubts about the war unpatriotic, while Democrats tried again and again to get honest answer to reasonable questions, mostly to no avail, all as per the usual -- and since all of these things are mostly pre-planned and scripted, a continuation of status quo was predictable (and inevitable) anyway. And round and round we go.

By the way, Mark E. Rosenberg, 32 years old, of Miami Lakes, Florida, died yesterday in Baghdad from wounds suffered when his vehicle hit a roadside explosive device. He's one of 18 US troops who have been killed in the past four days alone, the deadliest such stretch since last summer. Read the rest of this post...

NY Times begins to acknowledge McCain's campaign finance troubles

John McCain can't raise money for his campaign and wants to use the public financing system for the general election. He really wants Obama hamstrung by those spending limits, too. What McCain thinks doesn't matter because McCain's already gotten himself into legal trouble with the public financing system - an issue largely ignored by the traditional media. But, today, there was some progress -- not nearly as far as we need them to go, but at least an acknowledgment that McCain has serious problems with campaign finance laws:

As for Mr. McCain, he has crusaded against the influence of money in politics in the Senate and has criticized Mr. Obama for hedging on his earlier decision to apply for public financing. But Mr. McCain drew criticism of his own earlier this year when he backed away from public financing for the primary elections. He initially sought those public matching funds, which come with limits of their own, after his campaign nearly ran out of money, but decided to bypass them after donations started coming in.

Okay, like I said, this is just a start. And, there are some very important points that are missing. For example, McCain can't decide to bypass the system. The FEC decides and the FEC Chair (a Republican) said explicitly McCain cannot opt out on his own:

But McCain's attempts to build up his campaign coffers before a general election contest appeared to be threatened by the stern warning yesterday from Federal Election Commission Chairman David M. Mason, a Republican. Mason notified McCain that the commission had not granted his Feb. 6 request to withdraw from the presidential public financing system.

McCain, therefore, is still in the public financing system and subject to its limitations. McCain already exceeded the spending cap and that is a campaign finance crime:

Knowingly violating the spending limit is a criminal offense that could put McCain at risk of stiff fines and up to five years in prison.

That makes McCain a campaign finance criminal.

Keep in mind that the FEC is not functioning because McCain's GOP Senate colleagues won't allow a vote on new Commissioners.

Given McCain's shady dealings with the FEC and his attempt to scam the public financing system, Barack Obama should never, ever enter into any deal with McCain about campaign spending. And, any pundit or editorial writer who challenges Obama's position is ignoring McCain's criminality. Read the rest of this post...

Thursday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

So, Petraeus and Crocker have finished testifying. They still haven't told us how the Iraq was has made us safer. That's the fundamental question. Since we can't get an answer, the answer is: We're not safer.

We're not. Read the rest of this post...

British PM Brown to miss Beijing Olympics

But don't call it a boycott because then the communist government that gladly provides the world with cheap stuff might get angry and we would never want that. Only China can criticize other countries but we're not allowed to criticize them or else they will force western countries to go elsewhere to find cheap labor orchestrated by a wealthy dictatorship. S

o when did this big tradition of world leaders attending the Olympics actually start? I don't recall them tripping over each other to attend in the past but then again, the Olympics stopped being interesting to me when it became all about the corporate sponsorships and the doping and the every two years. Have this many presidents and prime ministers always attended? Read the rest of this post...

IMF sees 'credit crunch' losses at $1 trillion

There will be plenty more unraveling no matter what the Wall Street gamblers are saying this week. It's in their interest to downplay the losses considering they were at the center of it all. Just imagine what $1.2 trillion could have done. About all it's going to be worth now is a weekend home in the Hamptons, a new Ferrari or two and the rest of the lifestyle luxuries that the American taxpayer will fund as we bailout Wall Street. While it's nice for Wall Street, it's only rubbing salt in the wound for everyone else. Read the rest of this post...

Attention Clinton creditors, start calling! She just got more money! (Although, it's just enough to pay Mark Penn's bill)

At the end of February, the Clinton campaign owed a wide range of creditors $8.7 million dollars (including $2.5 million to Mark Penn's firm) -- "earning the campaign a reputation as something of a deadbeat." Now, that's a lot of debt considering the campaign only had $11.4 million available to spend at the end of February. Don't forget, there's still that $5 million loan. Tonight, Jed reports (with video) that UC Davis is considering legal action to collect the debt it is owed by the Clinton campaign.

Basically, at the end of February, the Clinton campaign was in the red. We've been told that the campaign raised "about $20 million" for March (my guess is that "about" means "under") and that "almost all" is for the primary. It's not unrealistic to imagine that the Clinton campaign spent "about" $20 million in March, if not more (and that doesn't include paying off all the massive debt from February). So cash is really tight.

That's why this influx of cash from tonight's Elton John concert should be welcome news to all those small business owners being stiffed by the Clinton campaign. Get on the phone fast, though. You know the Clinton campaign is going to put that money right into t.v. ads. Also, be forewarned that Mark Penn is owed $2.5 million so all the proceeds from the concert could just end up in his pocket.

Sure, we know that the Clintons earned $109 million over the past seven years. But unless she makes another big loan to the campaign, that's not going to help all those people who are owed money by the campaign. So act fast, creditors. Get to the Clinton campaign before Mark Penn swoops in and takes the whole Elton John haul. Read the rest of this post...