On last night’s “Hardball,”Chris Matthews took up the case of Hillary’s changing, fantastical recollections of her trip to Bosnia. Sitting in to fend for Hillary was Pennsylvania Representative Joe Sestak. Sestak dissembled responses in a way that made “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is,” look accurate and revealing.
In the matter of Hillary’s faulty recollection of her Bosnia trip, the ending exchange was:
MATTHEWS: Are you defending lying? Is that what you"˜re defending, or what are defending? Tell me what you consider fair ball in the game, if you will, of getting elected president. How big a fish can you claim to have caught, if you caught none? That"˜s all I"˜m asking.
SESTAK: Well, Chris, you know, I went to the Naval Academy. There was an honor code there, but very few people read that honor code. That honor code says, Hey, you won"˜t lie, steal or cheat. But it also says if you see someone who does, you don"˜t, then report them. You have a choice. You report them or you counsel them because we recognize that we"˜re humans. Whether it"˜s Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy or Hillary Clinton or Senator Obama, we all have our faults. The question is this. Who"˜s ready on day one because of what she learned in Bosnia…
Mr. Sestak tries to suggest that because the Naval Academy has installed a remediation process in their honor code system, that Hillary should be allowed “remediation.” The problem with this thinking is that it is clear from the remediation process that it is intended to reform the individual who was: “guilty of offenses of a dishonest nature, such as Falsehood (including any form of deception or attempt to deceive) ” (emphasis mine). Does anyone think that Hillary won’t be telling any future lies? How many tries at “remediation” has Hillary already had i.e. she was named for Sir Edmund Hillary, She knows what it is to be discriminated against because of a girls soccer game, Chelsea was in danger on 9/11 etc. Is there any evidence that she has/will/wants to reform?
Next, Mr. Sestak tries to pick selective Hillary wisdom to show she should be the one answering the phone at 3 A.M.
SESTAK: What it is important here is you"˜ve got someone who has persevered and does have experience. Look what she learned from Bosnia. She learned from Bosnia that we went into that country with over 50 percent of our troops non-U.S. and that we went into Iraq with less than 7 percent non-U.S. She watched Ireland. She saw that only when peace was done by Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams at the top politically did military security ensue. That"˜s why she has pointed out, because if she"˜s seen it from the Senate Armed Services Committee, where she"˜s the only senator ever to be asked by the U.S. military to be on a task force for transforming the military.
Mr. Sestak says that based on her knowledge of Ireland, Hillary knows that only through a political solution can military security ensue. Depending upon what exactly gave her the insight in Ireland she would have gained wisdom between 1994 and 1998. Apparently Hillary’s new found wisdom hadn’t congealed enough to counsel Bill prior to his participating in the Kosovo conflict of 1999….without a political solution in place first.
Perhaps Sestak was more accurate on Hillary’s position of gaining international support before striking. If he was, Hillary’s counsel wasn’t followed when Bill decided to launch air attacks in 1998. Clinton ordered U.S. air strikes on terrorist training camps and a plant that was thought to be making chemical weapons. In Sestak’s vernacular this would be 0% of non U.S. involvement. As an added bonus, it turned out that the intelligence on the alleged chemical plant was bad too…I guess Hillary doesn’t learn from ALL of her experiences.
I’ve never understood the desire to be a stooge and punching bag for other people’s mistakes. I typically find I get enough bruises just dealing with my own. Sestak’s ability to deflect the cries of “liar” and justify it with responses that were as equally dishonest, makes him my leader for “Dissembler of the Week” honors.
