Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Regardless of whether you agree with his politics, it's been pretty much universally agreed that Bill Clinton was a master politician. Which is why his absolutely amateur mistakes in campaigning for Hillary has some people - me included - speculating that he is trying to undermine her chances of becoming president, consciously or subconsciously. How else to explain this latest blunder?
Hillary's now-infamous lies about her trip to Bosnia while allegedly dodging sniper fire had finally left the front pages of the paper and the incident had died down, but for some bizarre reason he decided to bring it up himself - and just to make sure it gets maximum attention, he added some new lies to the story. At a campaign stop in Indiana, he said:
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.Let me just tell you. The president of Bosnia and General Wesley Clark -- who was there making peace where we'd lost three peacekeepers who had to ride on a dangerous mountain road because it was too dangerous to go the regular, safe way -- both defended her because they pointed out that when her plane landed in Bosnia, she had to go up to the bulletproof part of the plane, in the front. Everybody else had to put their flak jackets underneath the seat in case they got shot at. And everywhere they went they were covered by Apache helicopters. So they just abbreviated the arrival ceremony.
Now I say that because, what really has mattered is that even then she was interested in our troops. And I think she was the first first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt to go into a combat zone. And you woulda thought, you know, that she'd robbed a bank the way they carried on about this. And some of them when they're 60 they'll forget something when they're tired at 11 at night, too.
Except that she told that lie several times, twice in the morning rather than at 11 at night. And she did not "immediately apologize" for it, she waited a week and then made excuses for it. And just as it was beginning to die down, Bill Clinton decides to resurrect the story and add more fuel to the fire. I'm telling you, he's trying to sink her campaign. He's simply too good a politician for that to be an accident.
Comments
Okay, Bill, let's examine the meta-message.
She'll be presidential at 3:00 a.m., but not at 11:00 p.m.?
Now, what, exactly, does that imply?
Posted by: Farb | April 14, 2008 9:57 AM
Bill is used to lying to cover his tracks and having the democratic faithful parrot it back as gospel. The habit is not easily broken.
Posted by: Lance | April 14, 2008 10:45 AM
I was listening to Air America this weekend, I don't remember if it was Rachel Maddow or Peter B Collins, but they brought up a good point. The last time Bill Clinton was actively campaining was in 1996, long before You Tube and the "netroots." It used to be you could say something and it would only be covered by the local media, flying below the radar of the national media. Now you have activists on all sides, listening to every word, recording the most controversial pieces, and loading it up to youtube, where it will be endlessly discussed by blogs and eventually end up in the traditional media. That being said, it still seems like an awefully boneheaded move though.
Posted by: perpetualstudent | April 14, 2008 12:20 PM
I think he has confused Saturday Night Live with real life. Happens to a lot of people.
Posted by: Bill Poser | April 14, 2008 12:25 PM
Mr. Braytons' explanation is certainly one possibility. However, another is that Mr. Clinton is so pissed off at what he considers to be unfair coverage of his wife in the media, especially compared to the much more positive coverage of the other two candidates, that he can't control himself. As we have seen, Mr. Clinton has, in the past, demonstrated a lack of self discipline e.g. the Monica Lewinsky brouhaha.
Posted by: SLC | April 14, 2008 12:31 PM
I think lying is when you intentionally deceive. This is different than if you misremember something.
A more objective and reasoned analysis of whether Hillary lied or not (in this instance) can be found at one of Steven Novella's skeptic blog posts:
http://www.theskepticsguide.org/sgublog/?p=176
Posted by: ouini | April 14, 2008 12:43 PM
Perpetual student -
Whoever said it might have a point. Take
this from 1991 - "You know, he [Bush] wants to divide us over race. I'm from the South. I understand this. This quota deal they're gonna pull in the next election is the same old scam they've been pulling on us for decade after decade after decade. When their economic policies fail, when the country's coming apart rather than coming together, what do they do? They find the most economically insecure white men and scare the living daylights out of them. They know if they can keep us looking at each other across a racial divide, if I can look at Bobby Rush and think, Bobby wants my job, my promotion, then neither of us can look at George Bush and say, 'What happened to everybody's job? What happened to everybody's income? What ... have ... you ... done ... to ... our ... country?'"
Posted by: Andrea | April 14, 2008 1:23 PM
"I think lying is when you intentionally deceive. This is different than if you misremember something."
Did Bill "misremember" that Hillary had said the comment several times and never at midnight? Of course we're dealing with a man that will equivocate the meaning of "is" to cover a lie.
Posted by: Lance | April 14, 2008 1:57 PM
Speaking of the Clintonista dirty tricks team, did anyone else see Lanny Davis last night commiserating with the that slimy right wing hitman Sean Hannity on how Barack Obama was an elitist that was out of touch with the common man?
Talk about desperation. Is there nothing the Clinton team won't stoop to?
Posted by: Lance | April 14, 2008 2:09 PM
I think the claim that Bill is trying to undermine Hillary (whether consciously or subconsciously) is a bit of a stretch and involves some dubious psychologizing I would usually try to avoid without a pretty large amount of evidence (which we lack in this case).
A simpler explanation is that since it's his wife and not himself that's running for president this time, his heart isn't in it as much, and he's not trying as hard as he would otherwise. The blunders might simply be the result of him not putting out as much effort as he normally would for a political campaign. Avoid attributing to malice what can easily be explained by incompetence, as the saying goes.
That's not to say that Ed is necessarily wrong, but only that to accept the psychological motivation explanation, I'd need more evidence. Inferring psychological motives from a few instances of public behavior (filtered through the media) is risky business. Of course, I'm guilty of it myself sometimes, so I understand the temptation.
Posted by: Wes | April 14, 2008 6:42 PM
Exactly. People don't seem to have gotten used to the fact that we live in the Age of the Internet, and they're not going to get away with talking out of both sides of their mouth anymore.
Posted by: Turcano | April 14, 2008 8:32 PM
Hell, Ed, since we're screwed no matter who is elected, why don't we just take the Dave Barry approach and focus on the entertainment aspect of this campaign. Bill Clinton can be very entertaining, don't you think? I have to laugh whenever I think of him saying "I never inhaled" or "I never had sex with that woman, Monica Lewinski." Goddamn, that's funny.
Posted by: steven | April 14, 2008 11:19 PM
I don't know why you think he was a master politician. That's what the media told us after he would sleaze his way through some scandal. He would lie and do it obviously and blatantly, then the media would swoon and tell us what a master he was, and then people like you would buy it.
Face it. You liked Bill Clinton even though he was evil scum.
Posted by: wheyghey | April 15, 2008 8:02 AM
This is just sad, plain and simple. There's no rational political sense in the original "sniper fire" fabrication -- which any teenager who knows how to look up old news can refute in a minute -- and there's no sense in Bill adding more attention to the lie by trying to justify and/or embellish it. (Although, as an Obama supporter, I'm happy we're not talking about Obama's gaffes.)
They should be bragging about the success of Bill's military actions in the Balkans, and comparing it to Bush's failure in Iraq. Hell, the lack of sniper fire should have been taken as proof of success! Instead, Hillary once again snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, and turned a winning issue into a pile of horsemuffins.
And they're calling Obama "out of touch?"
Posted by: Raging Bee | April 15, 2008 10:41 AM
wheyghey wrote:
The phrase "full of shit" comes immediately to mind. I was calling for Clinton's impeachment long before anyone knew who Monica Lewinsky was. But that does not prevent me from recognizing his talent as a politician.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | April 15, 2008 12:13 PM
Here's what Joan Walsh has to say about this affair:
We spent most of our time bemoaning President Clinton's simply awful and multiply inaccurate comments about his wife's Bosnia gaffe -- especially his remark about reporters who covered the story, that "when they're 60, they'll forget something when they're tired at 11:00 at night, too." That seemed to suggest that she's getting senile, or at least that she's not ready for that infamous 3 a.m. phone call. The many sexist critics who've dogged Clinton in this race have rarely said anything so undermining.
Posted by: Raging Bee | April 15, 2008 12:22 PM