Clinton Lies About Iraq

By now everyone who has been on the internet or watched TV has heard Bill Clinton’s lie about opposing the war in Iraq.

Don Surber asks the question that I think will be THE question on people’s minds as they go to the polls (assuming Hillary wins the Democrat party nod): Do we really want a return to the Clinton scandals, lies and deceit? I think the answer will be no. Once is enough.

Do we really want to bring back this soap opera for 4 more years?


Patrick Healy of the New York Times reported that Bill Clinton is telling people on the campaign trail that he opposed the war in Iraq “from the beginning.”

Of course that’s not the truth.

CNN reported on June 23, 2004:

Former President Clinton has revealed that he continues to support President Bush’s decision to go to war in Iraq but chastised the administration over the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison.

“I have repeatedly defended President Bush against the left on Iraq, even though I think he should have waited until the U.N. inspections were over,” Clinton said in a Time magazine interview that will hit newsstands Monday, a day before the publication of his book “My Life.”

My point is not about Hillary trying to renege on her authorization of this war. My point is merely that under another President Clinton we will get more lies by any administration since Josef Stalin passed away.

Had enough?

The Times story is here. The CNN story is here. Linked by Memeorandum.

UPDATE: Oliver Willis: “As one of President Clinton’s strongest supporters and biggest fans, it pains me to point out that what he’s saying here is a load of bull.”

I did not have military relations with that war, that Iraq…

But the media mavens are still not ready to call Clinton’s lies what they are. On tonight’s “Special Report with Brit Hume” I watch in amazement that Fred Barnes, Michael Barone and Jeff Birnbaum never once said that Clinton lied. All of them used the word “slippery.”

NO!

“Slippery” assumes there is some wiggle room. It describes someone who is skirting the truth or using misdirection.

A magician is “slippery.”

A candidate who tells you that she will work for some glittering generality like love, peace, motherhood or apple pie is slippery.

Someone who says (as Clinton did) that he would have voted for the first Gulf War but agreed with those who stood against it is slippery.

But is someone denies he had “sex with that woman, Miss Lewinski” when he had sex with that woman, he is not slippery, he is a liar. And when he expresses support for the war in 2004 but claims to have opposed the war in 2007, he is not slippery, he is telling a lie.

But that’s par for the course with the press, even the likes of Barnes, Birnbaum and Barone who are denounced by FAIR as part of “The Most Biased name in News.” Part of the "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy."

What is wrong with these people? Are we back to the era when the press was actually praising Clinton for his ability to lie brazenly and convincingly? Are we back to claiming that everyone lies about sex and we’re OK with that (except Larry Craig)? What does it take before Clinton’s lies are properly labeled, catalogued and characterized?

Hello? Is anyone there?

UPDATE: Captain Ed:

Those who profess an undefinable discomfort with a Clinton return to power may find more definition for that discomfort after this display. It's not the equivocation that has people squirming; it's the ease with which Bill Clinton can issue flat-out lies. In fact, the fact that he issues such researchable and exposable lies and still has the chutzpah to use them on the stump that may worry people most of all. Does he really think that the media will allow those statements to go unchallenged?

Does the useof the term "slippery" answer your question?

UPDATE: The Corner on Clinton's lies:

Birds Got to Fly, Fish Got to Swim [Jonah Goldberg]


and Bill Clinton's got to lie. From today's Washington Post:

A former senior aide to then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice disputed Bill Clinton's statement this week that he "opposed Iraq from the beginning," saying that the former president was privately briefed by top White House officials about war planning in 2003 and that he told them he supported the invasion.

Clinton's comments in Iowa on Tuesday went far beyond more nuanced remarks he made about the conflict in 2003. But the disclosure of his presence in briefings by Rice — and his private expressions of support — may add to the headaches that the former president has given his wife's campaign in recent weeks.

Hillary Mann Leverett, at the time the White House director of Persian Gulf affairs, said that Rice and Elliott Abrams, then National Security Council senior director for Near East and North African affairs, met with Clinton several times in the months before the March 2003 invasion to answer any questions he might have. She said she was "shocked" and "astonished" by Clinton's remarks this week, made to voters in Iowa, because she has distinct memories of Abrams "coming back from those meetings literally glowing and boasting that 'we have Clinton's support.' "

Leverett, a former career foreign service officer who said she is not involved in any presidential campaign, said the incident affected her because of her own doubts about the wisdom of an attack. "To hear President Clinton was supportive really silenced whatever questions I had," she recalled. Leverett, who worked in the same office as Abrams at the time, said Rice and Abrams "made it a high priority" to get Clinton's support, meeting with him at least twice. Abrams was tasked to answer Clinton's questions and "took the responsibility very seriously," Leverett said. "Elliott was then very focused on making sure that we followed up on Clinton's questions to keep Clinton happy and on board."