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WaPo Awards 'Four Pinocchios' to Hillary on Sniper-Fire Fable
NewsBusters ^ | March 22, 2008 | Tim Graham

Posted on 03/22/2008 6:18:48 PM PDT by kingattax

The Washington Post is aligning its Fact Checker with Rich Noyes of NewsBusters. On Saturday's front page, the Inside box reads: "Four Pinocchios! Hillary Clinton has talked of coming under sniper fire during a 1996 trip to Bosnia. Our Fact Checker shoots that tale down." In the Michael Dobbs "Fact Checker" feature, four Pinocchios means not just fact-shading or exaggerating, but "Real whoppers." (It wasn't prominently featured on the washingtonpost.com home page.)

Dobbs wrote on Saturday that "Clinton's tale of landing at the Tuzla airport "under sniper fire" simply is not credible. Photographs and video of the arrival ceremony, complete with contemporaneous news reports, tell a very different story. MRC offered up the evidence out of our cavernous video archive. Dobbs offered up his own journalistic travels and other Post reporters in casting grave doubts on her story:

As a reporter who visited Bosnia soon after the December 1995 Dayton peace agreement, I can attest that the physical risks were minimal during this period, particularly at a heavily fortified U.S. air base, such as Tuzla. Contrary to the claims of Hillary Clinton and former Army secretary Togo West, Bosnia was not "too dangerous" a place for President Clinton to visit in early 1996. In fact, the first Clinton to visit the Tuzla Air Base was not Hillary, but Bill, on Jan. 13, 1996.

Had Hillary Clinton's plane come "under sniper fire" in March 1996, we would certainly have heard about it long before now. Numerous reporters, including The Washington Post's John Pomfret, covered her trip. A review of nearly 100 news accounts of her visit shows that not a single newspaper or television station reported any security threat to the first lady. "As a former AP wire-service hack, I can safely say that it would have been in my lead had anything like that happened," Pomfret said.

According to Pomfret, the Tuzla airport was "one of the safest places in Bosnia" in March 1996 and "firmly under the control" of the 1st Armored Division.

Far from running to an airport building with their heads down, Clinton and her party were greeted on the tarmac by smiling U.S. and Bosnian officials. An 8-year-old Muslim girl, Emina Bicakcic, read a poem in English. An Associated Press photograph of the greeting ceremony, below, shows a smiling Clinton bending down to receive a kiss.

"There is peace now," Emina told Clinton, according to Pomfret's report in The Post the next day, "because Mr. Clinton signed it. All this peace. I love it."

The first lady's schedule, released on Wednesday by the National Archives, confirms that she arrived in Tuzla at 8:45 a.m. and was greeted by various dignitaries, including Emina (whose name has mysteriously been redacted from the document). Footage from CBS shows Clinton walking calmly out of the back of the C-17 military transport plane that brought her from Ramstein Air Base in Germany.

Among the U.S. officials on hand to greet Clinton at the airport was Maj. Gen. William Nash, the commander of U.S. troops in Bosnia. Nash told me he was unaware of any security threat to Clinton during her eight-hour stay in Tuzla. He said, however, that Clinton had a "busy schedule" and may have got the impression that she was being hurried.

We at MRC are often skeptical of major-media fact checkers as we are of the politicians they're checking. But this Hillary story is easily dismissed, and it's a credit to the Post when they apply the Pinocchios on both sides of the political fence.


TOPICS: News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2008; demlies; hillary; michaeldobbs
..Four ? congrats, hildebeast !!
1 posted on 03/22/2008 6:18:50 PM PDT by kingattax
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To: kingattax

Hillary lied? I’m shocked!


2 posted on 03/22/2008 6:25:50 PM PDT by Graybeard58 ( Remember and pray for SSgt. Matt Maupin - MIA/POW- Iraq since 04/09/04)
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To: Graybeard58

Wasnt she also interested in joining the Marine Corps at one time and worked off the coast of Alaska gutting fish on a trawler?


3 posted on 03/22/2008 6:27:21 PM PDT by Riverman94610
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To: kingattax

Of course we’ve know that shrillry’s relationship with the truth has been strained and fractious for virtually her whole life...


4 posted on 03/22/2008 6:28:58 PM PDT by rockrr (Global warming is to science what Islam is to religion)
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To: kingattax

If the world, by some great and miraculous occurrence, suddenly become devoid of BS, Hitlery would disappear. ;-)


5 posted on 03/22/2008 6:29:44 PM PDT by doc1019 (God is in control ... not Global Warming.)
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To: kingattax
Dobbs wrote on Saturday that "Clinton's tale of landing at the Tuzla airport "under sniper fire" simply is not credible.

Like Her Thighness is ever credible when she's flapping her guns.

6 posted on 03/22/2008 6:30:10 PM PDT by El Gato ("The Second Amendment is the RESET button of the United States Constitution." -- Doug McKay)
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To: kingattax

American media, and in particular, New York and Washington media allowed and condoned any and all deception from the Clintons as it did with the Kennedy family. Now that Hillary is perceived as a loser, they seek another “Royal Family” to transfer their protection to.

It goes without saying that a republican has not yet been able to penetrate the media curtain of protection, however it seems clear that republicans will outlast old media.


7 posted on 03/22/2008 6:33:21 PM PDT by billhilly (I was republican when republican wasn't cool. (With an apology to Barbara Mandrell.))
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To: kingattax

Lol


8 posted on 03/22/2008 6:40:34 PM PDT by nuconvert (There are bad people in the pistachio business.)
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To: kingattax

Pathological liar.

Link to WaPo article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/21/AR2008032102989.html


9 posted on 03/22/2008 6:48:58 PM PDT by upchuck (Who wins doesn't matter. They're all liberals. Spend your time and money to take back Congress.)
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To: kingattax
"There is peace now," Emina told Clinton, according to Pomfret's report in The Post the next day, "because Mr. Clinton signed it. All this peace. I love it."

Oy vey..

10 posted on 03/22/2008 6:59:14 PM PDT by cardinal4 (Do I need a Sarcasm tag?)
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To: kingattax
I bet she would be doing the snipering with that shrieking snarling voice if they didn't get her to a place fast enough to feed her chubby chops.

This woman is so full of it. Surely, she is suffering from delusional maniacal illusions of grandeur.

This sort of belicosity not good for prospective president. "NO, NO, NO"....quoting Pastor Wright...

11 posted on 03/22/2008 7:09:11 PM PDT by harpo11 (Rush, had better have a back-up strategy just in case the third term grabbing Clintons win the WH.)
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To: kingattax
Image hosted by Photobucket.com
Image hosted by Photobucket.com
LOOK... it's TouristSenator!!!
It shows up in more places than TouristGuy,
only with less class, style and substance...
she's Vaporware, just an empty crusty.
(Please spread me around like the parasite that i am...)
Image hosted by Photobucket.com

12 posted on 03/22/2008 7:23:14 PM PDT by Chode (American Hedonist ©®)
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To: kingattax

Another link in a lifetime series of grand delusions...


13 posted on 03/22/2008 7:43:26 PM PDT by O Neill (Aye, Katie Scarlett, the ONLY thing that lasts is the land...)
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To: kingattax
According to Pomfret, the Tuzla airport was "one of the safest places in Bosnia" in March 1996 and "firmly under the control" of the 1st Armored Division.

Not that a few members of the 1st AD weren't entertaining thoughts...

14 posted on 03/22/2008 7:46:24 PM PDT by Grizzled Bear ("Does not play well with others.")
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To: kingattax
Photobucket

Photobucket

15 posted on 03/22/2008 8:03:18 PM PDT by Cobra64 (www.BulletBras.net)
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To: Riverman94610

She was also named after Sir Edmund Hillary, don’t you remember?


16 posted on 03/22/2008 8:45:22 PM PDT by Panzerlied ("We shall never surrender!")
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To: kingattax

Humpty Hillary. All the kings horses...


17 posted on 03/22/2008 8:49:12 PM PDT by PGalt
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To: kingattax

That should be four CLINOCCHIOS!!!!!!!!!


18 posted on 03/23/2008 7:15:33 AM PDT by jmaroneps37 (Conservatives live in the truth. Liberals live in lies.)
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To: kingattax
Too bad it wasn't a Marine sniper.

O.S.O.K.

Semper fi

19 posted on 03/23/2008 7:22:52 AM PDT by mad_as_he$$ (John McCain - The Manchurian Candidate? http://www.usvetdsp.com/manchuan.htm)
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To: doc1019

Yup you would think she was a Texan. The only place they can stack BS that high.


20 posted on 03/23/2008 7:23:32 AM PDT by mad_as_he$$ (John McCain - The Manchurian Candidate? http://www.usvetdsp.com/manchuan.htm)
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