Is the whole Brain Williams kerfuffle a warm up

[needledriver]

for the inevitable attacks on when Hillary Clinton "misspoke" about landing in Bosnia under sniper fire?

People are piling on the Brian Williams thing like crazy - inflating it to absurd degrees.

Does anyone think Hillary will get off more lightly?

[cwydro]

1. First it was "conflating"

now you speak of "inflating."

[TeeYiYi]

6. Right on the heels of deflategate...

Spooky!

TYY

[alcibiades_mystery]

11. Deflaters won

So will Ms. Clinton.

[TheBlackAdder]

32. I would like to see the "Fairness Doctrine" reinstated or "Truth in Journalism" laws. nt

[on point]

2. I am more interested in an honest answer from her on her Iraq War Crime vote

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

5. Iraq War Crime? I agree the war was a crime but is that what you mean?

[on point]

12. Yep. She voted to invade Iraq for no legitimate reason. That is war crime of 'aggression'.

So far she has waffled and tried to avoid answering the question.

Given that Bush admin was obviously lying, she was either:
a) part of conspiracy to take us to war
b) to craven to resist war fever (leadership and backbone failure)
c) corrupt - bought and paid for, or in her case I suspect a calculated effort to look tough to aid her ambition - costing the country trillions, our service people their lives, the lives of the Iraqi people, political stability in the region which we are still paying for. Just so she could get ahead at the expense of others.
d) conned. She was suckered by Bush and his cronies. Her judgement seriously called into question, she is not fit to lead nation.

Anyone of these disqualifies her from office in my book, but she had better give an honest answer, especially if it is not a,b,c,d.

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

13. So if the choice is her or Ted Cruz, do you not vote for her?

Her or Rand Paul?

Jeb Bush?

just curious

[Capt. Obvious]

41. That sounds like Debbie Wasserman Shultz's strategy.

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

47. I am not crazy about her, at all...Why havent they replaced her?

[ChairmanAgnostic]

61. She must claim to have inherited J Edgar's shoebox

with all the tapes and photos.

[merrily]

56. I hear Ted Cruz will not be running in the Democratic primary.

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

62. Nah, but if he won the R primary and ran against Hillary...i wonder what people would do

Me, I am working for and voting for Bernie, until I cant...then I am voting against terrorism

[merrily]

64. Plenty of time to ask that question when the Democratic nominee has become obvious.

If you feel a need to ask it at all.

It's funny to me how many DUers post to me that Bernie is their preferred candidate, yet post in support of Hillary and only Hillary.

[Capt. Obvious]

65. It's never too early for loyalty oaths

[merrily]

66. Joe McCarthy, is that you? Actually, it's never the right time for message board loyalty oaths.

They're not worth the paper they're written on.

[needledriver]

23. The lying is obvious now.

Regardless what you may have read on DU, it wasn't so cut and dried at the time.

Considering all the incredible pressure, outright lies, and heavy political spin put on the AUMF vote, I am willing to cut her the benefit of the doubt on that one. It is plain to see with hindsight the utter falseness of the premise to use force on Iraq, but people of good conscience made the choice to vote in favor of it. I am willing to believe that, although she should have known better, at the time she didn't know better.

[on point]

34. I knew at the time the war was a fraud. She has no excuse at all and I won't cut her slack.

If no other dem is put forward, I'll be voting green.

[Capt. Obvious]

42. Of course she knew

She voted with the White House ambition in mind.

[merrily]

58. And no cost in blood and treasure to the US was too great when it came to her personal ambition.

What a great recommendation for a President.

[merrily]

53. She did not only vote for the Iraq invasion. She stood up in the Senate with her bare face

hanging out and did her best to persuade anyone who heard her, including her fellow Senators and people like you and me, that the invasion was necessary.

Later, she said she had not even bothered to read the NIE before doing that and before voting.

Relatively recently, she finally said her vote was a mistake. However, you don't get a mulligan on a war vote. Too many on all sides dead, maimed in body, mind and spirit and too many displaced for an oopsie.

Also for the invasion? The DLC and its offshoot, Progressive Policy Institute. Just a coincidence, I'm sure. I'm sure Hillary thought this one out for herself, even if she didn't bother to read the NIE.

[Cosmic Kitten]

29. what do you mean, *you mean*?

Hilary was and is PRO-WAR
What don't you understand?

Hillary will go to war and commit
war crimes as necessary.

"We came, We saw, HE Died"
Murderous and illegal?
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/49583

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

3. Who knows...I want to know if Bernie is going to switch parties, run, to move her to the left

[leveymg]

4. It's going to be a very ugly campaign if HRC runs.

You are definitely onto something here.

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

7. The only thing we dont know is what will the libertarian Hillary haters

do to prevent people who arent paying attention from voting, prevent as in talk them out of etc

I mean we know what the right will do, the right HATES women, especially her

[Cosmic Kitten]

30. The libertarian Hillary haters...

Good thing YOU are here to show us what THEY will do!

[benz380]

38. I'm a corporatist Hillary hater. And I won't vote for her or a repug. nt

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

14. You can say that again. I'm bettin Hillary ends up not runnin-would be a smart move on her part.

[leveymg]

15. She'd better stop hiring campaign staff.

A lot of powerful people in Washington are going to be really pissed if she decides now not to run.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

39. They can always throw their support to Bernie, who doesn't need to inflate his biography - awesome person that he is.

[KittyWampus]

17. it'll be ugly no matter which Democrat runs.

[Politicalboi]

8. "Misspoke"

LOL! You mean lied don't you? Didn't she know if there was video of her safe and sniper free trip? I hate liars, and especially dumb ones who's lies can be picked apart in minutes. Now if Hillary is the ONLY choice in 2016, I will have to overlook the lie, hold my nose, and hold on tight till the next lie comes down the pike. I got kicked out of a Hillary group post over bringing her lie up.

All I know is Billo must be loving this. Lie about serving in combat, and sexual harassment suits, and he's still on the TV machine every night.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

16. Shame on you bringing up Hillary lies. Now drink your Koolaid and get ready for HilLIARy.

[KittyWampus]

19. you mean like Elizabeth Warren "misspoke" about being American Indian?

[AtomicKitten]

25. Is that really a thing?

from Mother Jones: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/05/elizabeth-warren-is-part-native-american

Now the Herald has some actual substance on the candidate's claims: Warren's great-great-great grandmother on her mother's side was Cherokee, making Warren—provided the genealogist didn't miss anything—1/32 Native American if her great-great-great grandmother was full-blooded (that's unclear). Warren has said that both of her mother's parents had American Indian blood, in which case the fraction would obviously be a little bit bigger. (It's plausible that some of Warren's relatives would have masked their Cherokee heritage, given the legally prescribed second-class citizenship bestowed upon American Indians for much of the 20th century.) Per newspaper clippings released by her campaign, other members of Warren's family, including a first cousin, have embraced their Cherokee roots and are active in American Indian causes in Oklahoma, where she grew up.

-- snip

The standards for who counts as an American Indian vary from tribe to tribe, and hinge in part on when you applied. Prior to 1963, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (that is, those who weren't forcibly relocated by the federal government in the 1830s) granted tribal membership to anyone who could prove he was 1/32 Cherokee. Per their site: "All direct lineal descendants of the ancestor listed on the 1924 Baker Roll must have been living on August 14, 1963, possess at least 1/32 degree of Eastern Cherokee blood, and have applied for membership prior to August 14, 1963." For those who applied after 1963, the standards went up to 1/16. Bill John Baker, principal chief of the Cherokee Nation—an umbrella group which includes the Easter Cherokee—is 1/32 Cherokee, which was the subject of a minor controversy prior to his election, but obviously not a deal-breaker.

In other words, without wading too deeply into ongoing debates within the Native American community, Warren could make a fairly a legitimate claim to the title. Growing up in Oklahoma, with a large American Indian population, it's not surprising that she would have viewed her heritage differently than in a place like Massachusetts, which has a large population of political columnists who make teepee jokes. We're probably not talking about "Doctor Michele Bachmann."

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

40. Thanks AK for settin the record straight. I'd take Elizabeth's record of honesty & genuineness over HilLiarY's any day.

[MannyGoldstein]

37. Did she? nt

[hedgehog]

43. You young'ens won't believe this, but up until about 1970 or so,

people concealed their Indian heritage because Indians were viewed as lazy, dirty, ignorant etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_Movement

It makes perfect sense to me that family members on both sides passed as white when they could in order to better their status. Families keep secrets from outsiders for generations. Even if only one distant ancestor was an Indian, Warren grew up under the one drop rule.

Read Senator Warren's book "A Fighting Chance" for a more detailed explanation.

[merrily]

57. Did she? Did anyone do a DNA test to prove her wrong?

Believing something about your ancestry that you grew up hearing from your closest family members all your life and therefore including it in your employment records is really nothing like making shit up to prove you have enough first hand foreign policy experience to be President. Although, thanks to Obama, she has foreign policy experience now.

(Scott Brown, is that you?)

[needledriver]

22. I put "misspoke" in quotes

because it was her word, not mine.

At least Brian Williams' helicopter group took some actual fire.

[GGJohn]

46. At least Brian Williams' helicopter group took some actual fire?

No, it didn't.

http://money.cnn.com/2015/02/06/media/stelter-iraq-pilots/

"Simeone and Kelly said only two helicopters were in their group, from Company B of the 159th Aviation. They said Krell was piloting the first helicopter. Simeone and Kelly were pilots on the second Chinook, and Miller was in their crew."

The paper continued: "All three said Williams was riding with them, not with Krell. They all said neither bird took fire at any time that day."

Now even Krell is backing away from his story.

The pilot I interviewed on Thursday about Brian Williams is no longer standing by his story.

That pilot, Rich Krell, told me he was flying the helicopter Williams was on in Iraq -- an account now contradicted by several other soldiers.

On Friday morning, Krell told me that "the information I gave you was true based on my memories, but at this point I am questioning my memories

More on why they landed.





http://pagesix.com/2015/02/05/pilot-of-brian-williams-flight-all-that-hit-us-was-dust/

Pilot of Brian Williams’ flight: All that hit us was dust

I was the pilot in command of the flight that carried Brian Williams into Iraq in March 2003.
The mission was to deliver bridges to the Objective Rams region in order to support our ground-force advancement. We were briefed that we would be operating forward of the line of troops and that the objective was unsecure.

We were a flight of two, and I was the rear aircraft. Our flight to Objective Rams was uneventful, with the exception of a desert dust storm that caused deteriorating conditions not suitable for flight.
We determined that we would not make it back to Kuwait as planned. When we arrived at Objective Rams, we found a US armor unit on the objective. There was also a CH-47 from the “Big Windy” unit out of Germany.

The CH-47 was already shut down, and the entire crew was no longer at the aircraft. We dropped off the bridges and landed next to the parked CH-47 and the Bradley Fighting Vehicles due to the weather.

They didn't land because of any battle damage, they landed because of bad weather and, they landed among a US armored unit, so they were relatively safe for the night.

Nope, Brian Williams flat out lied about his bird, or any bird in the formation he was in, taking any hostile ground fire.

[needledriver]

67. Dang. Well, it wouldn't be the first time

I believed a lie by the national media. Thanks for the reads up.

[tracks29]

9. No it's the typical overreaction to everything

It's even more overblown than usual because it involves our troops and what is perceived to be the ultra-liberal NBC News.

That isn't to say the Bosnia story won't come up. They just aren't connected.

[Kingofalldems]

28. Who perceives NBC as ultra liberal?

[tracks29]

33. The RW

[Kingofalldems]

35. Doesn't mean they are.

Fox News however definitely is right wing. Plenty of evidence to back it up.

"Terrorist fist bump." ---Fox news.

[tracks29]

49. I never said they were

I guess people misunderstood me. I was talking about the view of the networks outside of DU.

[Orsino]

50. We love tearing down the occadional celeb.

Stuffy ol' MSM types are obvious targets.

I doubt any connection to Clinton, and am not sure what "warm-up" would mean in this context. We love our military heroes, and love taking down anyone who appears to be riding their coattails.

That Clinton will face a barrage of mostly-spurious slurs is a given.

[TheKentuckian]

10. Probably, how does one dodge that particular bullet?

Folks can pretend it isn't important but I'd hammer it and I think it can be as effective angle for pushing an attack on credibility and trust.

It is a hell of a lot more than getting caught riding in a tank and bizarre defenses based on reaction to misogyny and the like aren't going to work to terribly will in the mass media or mainstream American people.

[merrily]

59. Agree, but the airport bit, important as it was, pales in comparison with her speech urging

support for Bush's invasion of Iraq.

[TheKentuckian]

71. True but lying about snipers is much easier to hammer on a commercial and is nonpartisan

Important doesn't equal effective. It is a far easier character attack regardless of where one stands on any issue and she is unlikely to run against someone who opposed the war and the people that care aren't going to vote for the TeaPubliKlan anyway.

[merrily]

74. Depends on the audience. I think more Democrats opposed her in 2008 for her speech and vote on the

war than her silly airport lie. I don't even know how many voters even knew about the airport lie, which really harmed no one but her. One was heinous, the other ridiculous.

[JHB]

18. They're piling on because it feeds their tropes about "lying liberal media"...

They need no additional motivation to attack Hillary (or Obama, Warren, or anyone else), just like they needed no additional motivation to attack Bill.

All they need is reassurance that all their prejudices, irrational fears, and petty hatreds are completely justified.

[DearAbby]

20. Or it may never come up again

How many of these apocalyptic "something is doomed" events have we've gone through, think Ebola panic. Remember how quickly that was forgotten, onto the next, then the next. This is the party who placed Sarah Palin in the position of taking over if heaven forbid, something happened. This Person was supposed to be READY to pick up the mantle if need be. They have the attention span of a gnat.

[TheKentuckian]

73. If you were running against Clinton in a general election you wouldn't make sure it came up?

If you were making superpac attack ads you'd pass on that?

Hard to believe especially from the impeach for a blowjob/Benghazi!/Whitewater party. Pure whistling by the graveyard.

[underpants]

21. I'm telling you it stinks of PR

[olddots]

24. do we ad to the problem

by playing along ?

[Chemisse]

26. I think she is off the hook for this.

The passage of time tends to take away the momentum from this kind of incident.

[liberal N proud]

27. He is just an habitual liar who finally gate called out.

[MannyGoldstein]

31. Whose story was more fictional?

Williams or Clinton?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

36. LOL

[HappyMe]

44. I don't think it has much to do with Hillary.

But I don't think she should get off lightly. She wants to be President, Brian Williams doesn't.

[pinboy3niner]

45. 'Brain' williams may be an overstatememt at this point

[pinboy3niner]

48. "Brain" Williams would be good with fava beans and a nice chianti

[merrily]

51. Williams needs to resign. Rather got fired for a hell of a lot less.

Disagree that a lie by an evening news anchor on one of the nation's three major networks is being inflated. It is a huge deal.

His credibility is almost 100% his value to the network and the American public. He blew it by deliberately making up a story, simply because he wanted to look like more of a hero than he is. If he'd lie for that, where would he draw the line?

If you can't trust the people who bring the news to tell you the truth, they're not worth a thing.

[Fumesucker]

52. And if you can't trust the people who run your government to tell the truth...

What then?

[merrily]

55. Who trusts the people who run government to tell the truth?

[needledriver]

69. I didn't mean that his specific lie

was being inflated. It is that you can't look at your Facebook feed without seeing a dozen hyperbolic memes about some new outrageous "claim" by Brian Williams.

I realize that photoshopping Brian Williams into the surrender at Appomattox etc. is intended as humor, but the sheer inflated excess of it gives me cause to wonder if Hillary Clinton will be subject to a similar style of character assassination.

[merrily]

70. I think the two things are separate. Also, Ichingcarpenter posted the other day that he

has been posting about Williams' lies for years. I doubt Iching's motives all those years were connected to Hillary. And the hell Dan Rather got put through certainly had nothing to do with Hillary.

But, yes, quite apart from the Williams thing, Hillary will be mocked. Every Presidential candidate is.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

76. People have known for a lot time that he exaggerates

I'm pretty damn sure he never saw any bodies floating from his hotel room in the french quarter during Katrina.

The french quarter did not flood, and there was enough "drama" going on that he didn't have to exaggerate. What a shame.

[B Calm]

54. You are spot on! It has already started with the

Right Wing talking heads.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

63. Please stop being fearful of the Republicans. It's unbecoming of us Democrats.

[B Calm]

68. No one is being fearful, just stating a fact!

[DemocratSinceBirth]

78. They said our presidential candidate...

They said our presidential candidate was an illegal alien and a crypto-Muslim who "palled around with terrorists" and we kicked their collective asses not once but twice!

[B Calm]

79. When they said that shit about Obama did it make you fearful?

Me neither..

[daredtowork]

60. Why do Democrats have "scandals"

and Republicans have Talk Radio hosts that lie 24/7 and that's just politics as usual?

[merrily]

72. I'd be surprised if Williams, or anyone important at NBC News, is a Democrat.

And he has a scandal because he lied about a matter of fact, not opinion or interpretation, and troops outed him as a liar. And he is the evening news anchor at one of the nation's 3 major networks. (Yes, I know Fox is also considered a major network, but not by me!)

[KamaAina]

75. Brain Williams?

Have we just foiled his plot to try and take over the world?

[still_one]

77. I don't know, but if the media was looking for honesty in their ranks, Fox News would be in the

Headlines everyday for their dishonest reporting