In honor of Hillary Clinton’s "misstatements" concerning her Bosnia visit, we are happy to flash back to an excellent article written by William Safire in 1996. In cas you don’t know what we’re talking about, Hillary Clinton recently .

Round 1.)

"I certainly do remember that trip to Bosnia. 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.”

Round 2.)

"Now let me tell you what I can remember, OK — because what I was told was that we had to land a certain way and move quickly because of the threat of sniper fire. So I misspoke — I didn’t say that in my book or other times but if I said something that made it seem as though there was actual fire — that’s not what I was told. I was told we had to land a certain way, we had to have our bulletproof stuff on because of the threat of sniper fire. I was also told that the greeting ceremony had been moved away from the tarmac but that there was this 8-year-old girl and, I can’t, I can’t rush by her, I’ve got to at least greet her — so I greeted her, I took her stuff and then I left, Now that’s my memory of it.

Round 3.)

"No, I went to 80 countries, you know. I gave contemporaneous accounts, I wrote about a lot of this in my book. you know, I think that, a minor blip, you know, if I said something that, you know, I say a lot of things — millions of words a day — so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement."

well. She mis-spoke rather repeatedly about that event once she became a Candidate, seems to me at some point it has to stop being a "misspoke" and start becoming a lie. but I guess that depends on what your definition of "is" is.

Essay: Blizzard of Lies

By WILLIAM SAFIRE

Americans of all political persuasions are coming to the sad
realization that our First Lady — a woman of undoubted talents who
was a role model for many in her generation — is a congenital liar.

Drip by drip, like Whitewater torture, the case is being made that she
is compelled to mislead, and to ensnare her subordinates and friends
in a web of deceit.

1. Remember the story she told about studying The Wall Street Journal
to explain her 10,000 percent profit in 1979 commodity trading? We now
know that was a lie told to turn aside accusations that as the
Governor’s wife she profited corruptly, her account being run by a
lawyer for state poultry interests through a disreputable broker.

She lied for good reason: To admit otherwise would be to confess
taking, and paying taxes on, what some think amounted to a $100,000
bribe.

2. The abuse of Presidential power known as Travelgate elicited
another series of lies….

3. In the aftermath of the apparent suicide of her former partner and
closest confidant, White House Deputy Counsel Vincent Foster… [h]er
closest friends and aides, under oath, have been blatantly
disremembering this likely obstruction of justice, and may have to pay
for supporting Hillary’s lie with jail terms.

Again, the lying was not irrational. Investigators believe that
damning records from the Rose Law Firm, wrongfully kept in Vincent
Foster’s White House office, were spirited out in the dead of night
and hidden from the law for two years — in Hillary’s closet…

The records show Hillary Clinton was lying when she denied actively
representing a criminal enterprise known as the Madison S.& L., and
indicate she may have conspired with Web Hubbell’s father-in-law to
make a sham land deal that cost taxpayers $3 million…

By concealing the Madison billing records two days beyond the statute
of limitations, Hillary evaded a civil suit by bamboozled bank
regulators….

"Why didn’t she just come clean at the beginning?" She had good
reasons to lie; she is in the longtime habit of lying; and she has
never been called to account for lying herself or in suborning lying
in her aides and friends….

As this whole sordid episode regarding the sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright has played out over the last week, I wanted to understand what he ACTUALLY said in this speech. I’ve been saying all week on CNN that context is important, and I just wanted to know what the heck is going on.

I have now actually listened to the sermon Rev. Wright gave after September 11 titled, “The Day of Jerusalem’s Fall.” It was delivered on Sept. 16, 2001.

One of the most controversial statements in this sermon was when he mentioned “chickens coming home to roost.” He was actually quoting Edward Peck, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and deputy director of President Reagan’s terrorism task force, who was speaking on FOX News. That’s what he told the congregation.

He was quoting Peck as saying that America’s foreign policy has put the nation in peril:

“We took this country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, Arikara, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism.

“We took Africans away from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism.

“We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel.

“We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenage and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard working fathers.

“We bombed Qaddafi’s home, and killed his child. Blessed are they who bash your children’s head against the rock.

“We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to pay back for the attack on our embassy, killed hundreds of hard working people, mothers and fathers who left home to go that day not knowing that they’d never get back home.

“We bombed Hiroshima. We bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye.

“Kids playing in the playground. Mothers picking up children after school. Civilians, not soldiers, people just trying to make it day by day.

“We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff that we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.

“Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred. And terrorism begets terrorism. A white ambassador said that y’all, not a black militant. Not a reverend who preaches about racism. An ambassador whose eyes are wide open and who is trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised. The ambassador said the people we have wounded don’t have the military capability we have. But they do have individuals who are willing to die and take thousands with them. And we need to come to grips with that.”

He went on to describe seeing the photos of the aftermath of 9/11 because he was in Newark, N.J., when the planes struck. After turning on the TV and seeing the second plane slam into one of the twin towers, he spoke passionately about what if you never got a chance to say hello to your family again.

“What is the state of your family?” he asked.

And then he told his congregation that he loved them and asked the church to tell each other they loved themselves.

His sermon thesis:

1. This is a time for self-examination of ourselves and our families.

2. This is a time for social transformation (then he went on to say they won’t put me on PBS or national cable for what I’m about to say. Talk about prophetic!)

“We have got to change the way we have been doing things as a society,” he said.

Wright then said we can’t stop messing over people and thinking they can’t touch us. He said we may need to declare war on racism, injustice, and greed, instead of war on other countries.

“Maybe we need to declare war on AIDS. In five minutes the Congress found $40 billion to rebuild New York and the families that died in sudden death, do you think we can find the money to make medicine available for people who are dying a slow death? Maybe we need to declare war on the nation’s healthcare system that leaves the nation’s poor with no health coverage? Maybe we need to declare war on the mishandled educational system and provide quality education for everybody, every citizen, based on their ability to learn, not their ability to pay. This is a time for social transformation.”

3. This is time to tell God thank you for all that he has provided and that he gave him and others another chance to do His will.

By the way, nowhere in this sermon did he said “God damn America.” I’m not sure which sermon that came from.

This doesn’t explain anything away, nor does it absolve Wright of using the N-word, but what it does do is add an accurate perspective to this conversation.

The point that I have always made as a journalist is that our job is to seek the truth, and not the partial truth.

I am also listening to the other sermons delivered by Rev. Wright that have been the subject of controversy.

And let me be clear: Where I believe he was wrong and not justified in what he said based upon the facts, I will say so. But where the facts support his argument, that will also be said.

So stay tuned.

CLICK HERE to hear the full sermon yourself.

- Roland S. Martin, CNN Contributor
www.rolandsmartin.com

from the CNN ticker:

I had a time believing that and went and dug through the exit polls data myself. Wow. Robert actually understates the case. of the republicans who voteds in the primary for a Democrat, 76% voted for Hillary. yet those same 76% seem to favor McCain in a General Election. that pretty clearly seems to say thet they would rather have McCain face Hillary in a general election rather than Obama. so.. who’s more electable  by THOSE numbers? I think it’s time for Hillary to do what’s best for the party and best for the country instead of what’s best for Billary.

Well. seems that there’s something fishy going on. All of a sudden Billary (yep, the double-danger tag team of Bill and Hillary), are holding out a hadn to Barack. They sure are being generous in their second-place strength. They sure want everyone to know that it’s OK not to vote for Barack, cause if everyone votes for Hillary, Barack is welcome to win also… It’s these type of tactics that epitomize the Billary machine. Act innocent when making a VERY deliberant statement, be back-handedly dirty in public and open-faced dirty behind your back. This tactic has the power to work AS LONG AS Barack doesn’t point it out and burn that "supposed" bridge. What Billary hopes will happen is that people who prefer the hope of Barack, but think that maybe the "rest" of america is too bigoted to vote for him, will instead jump behind her assuming she will bring Barack along with her. Truth is, of course, that she has probably sold her soul to some other schlep as her running mate and will never honestly consider Barack. She IS finding out, and keeping it rather quiet, that America is a lot less bigoted than she originally though. Billary though that they were among the enlightened elite, the few who could vote for a Black person, that the rest of America was full of ignorant masses who would never vote for someone black. Imagine her surprise when she learned that those ignorant masses would somehow overcome their bigotry and vote for Barack over her. Any chance that it could be that there are people who dislike her even more than they like the Democratic Party? Quite honestly, I  would vote for McCain over Bush. At least I trust him to do what he says…