BlueBloggin

Misleading, misstating or just flat out lying, seem to be a weekly event for Hillary Clinton. I really wasn’t going to post on any of Hillary’s recent tales but after two major lies; the Iraq War and a medical insurance story, I just couldn’t let them go by.

Before I go any further, the 2002 Iraq War vote was wrong. I’m not holding the vote against the candidates, however, I am willing to use it against any candidate who tries to rewrite history for their political gain.

Let’s start with the most recent gaffe; the Iraq War.

PressTV – Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton has reminded voters that she started criticizing the Iraq war long before Senator Barack Obama.

“I started criticizing the war in Iraq before he did. So, I’m well aware that his entire campaign is premised on a speech he gave in 2002 and I give him credit for making that speech. But that was not a decision.” said Clinton at a campaign stop in Oregon.

Although Hillary is only counting from 2005 forward, how does Hillary account for her statement on CNN, Wednesday, April 21, 2004?

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said she is not sorry she voted for a resolution authorizing President Bush to take military action in Iraq despite the recent problems there but she does regret “the way the president used the authority.”

Or in her 2002 Senate floor speech

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkS9y5t0tR0]

Or in her December 15, 2003, to the Council on Foreign Relations[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxHgxtfVUJk]

As Jake Tapper of Political Punch points out:

• It’s an odd way to measure opposition to the war — comparing who gave the first criticism of the war in Iraq starting in January 2005, ignoring Obama’s opposition to the war throughout 2003 and 2004. (And Clinton’s vote for it.)

But even if one were to employ this “Start Counting in January 2005″ measurement, Clinton did not criticize the war in Iraq first.

• The misrepresentation of the record is symbolic of the re-writing of history Clinton has attempted on her record regarding the war in Iraq.

Because the larger context is more important. And Clinton’s written criticism of the war in a press statement in January 2005 received little attention compared to the press surrounding her trip to Iraq the next month, in February 2005.

Upon returning she argued that setting a deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops would aid the enemy.

“I don’t think it’s useful to set a deadline because I think it sends a signal to the terrorists and the insurgents that they just have to wait us out,” she said.

In an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press on Feb. 20, 2005, Clinton said that withdrawing some troops or setting a date for withdrawal would be a “mistake.”

The next gaffe lie; Lack of Medical Insurance.

Apparently when Hillary is told a story, neither she nor her staff vetted them. In this case it would not have been very hard since the person who told Hillary the half truth, heard it from the deceased women’s relative. So the source was pretty easy to get to, even for the research challenged.

While Hillary was campaigning in Ohio and Wyoming, she kept telling a tale of a pregnant woman who was turned away at the hospital because she didn’t have insurance or $100.00. According to Clinton, this neglect caused the death of the woman and her baby. Interestingly enough Hillary told the story a few different ways.

How Clinton got the story:

The sheriff’s deputy, Bryan Holman, had played host to Mrs. Clinton in his home before the Ohio primary. Deputy Holman said in a telephone interview that a conversation about health care led him to relate the story of Ms. Bachtel. He never mentioned the name of the hospital that supposedly turned her away because he did not know it, he said.

Deputy Holman knew Ms. Bachtel’s story only secondhand, having learned it from close relatives of the woman. Ms. Bachtel’s relatives did not return phone calls Friday.

As Deputy Holman understood it, Ms. Bachtel had died of complications from a stillbirth after being turned away by a local hospital for her failure to pay $100 upfront.

“I mentioned this story to Senator Clinton, and she apparently took to it and liked it,” Deputy Holman said, “and one of her aides said she’d be using it at some rallies.”

Clinton campaign speeches:

Mrs. Clinton repeatedly offered it as a dire example of a broken health care system. At one March rally in Wyoming, for instance, she referred to Ms. Bachtel, a 35-year-old who managed a Pizza Hut, as a young, uninsured minimum-wage worker, saying, “It hurts me that in our country, as rich and good of a country as we are, this young woman and her baby died because she couldn’t come up with $100 to see the doctor.”

Mrs. Clinton does not name Ms. Bachtel or the hospital in her speeches. As she tells it, the woman was turned away twice by a local hospital when she was experiencing difficulty with her pregnancy. “The hospital said, ‘Well, you don’t have insurance.’ She said, ‘No, I don’t.’ They said, ‘Well, we can’t see you until you give $100.’ She said, ‘Where am I going to get $100?’

“The next time she came back to the hospital, she came in an ambulance,” Mrs. Clinton continued. “She was in distress. The doctors and the nurses worked on her and couldn’t save the baby.”

The Truth:

The woman, Trina Bachtel, did die last August, two weeks after her baby boy was stillborn at O’Bleness Memorial Hospital in Athens, Ohio. But hospital administrators said Friday that Ms. Bachtel was under the care of an obstetrics practice affiliated with the hospital, that she was never refused treatment and that she was, in fact, insured.

“We implore the Clinton campaign to immediately desist from repeating this story,” said Rick Castrop, chief executive officer of the O’Bleness Health System.

Linda M. Weiss, a spokeswoman for the not-for-profit hospital, said the Clinton campaign had never contacted the hospital to check the accuracy of the story, which Mrs. Clinton had first heard from a Meigs County, Ohio, sheriff’s deputy in late February.

Apparently Clinton has fallen into the very deep hole of not investigating, questioning or checking facts. That sounds so familiar.

Posted by nytexan April 7th, 2008 | Category: Clinton, Health Care, Iraq, Obama, Politics, lies, primary | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL