Hillary's 'First Since Eleanor in War Zone' Claim Not True- Will MSM Report?

Newsbusters.org ^ | 3/26/08 | Warner Todd Huston

[Mobile Vulgus]

Hillary's house of cards is falling all around her with her claims of having had to duck enemy sniper fire during debarkation at her Tulza, Bosnia trip in 1996. She made all sorts of claims that her trip was a harrowing one that placed her in danger and that this fact should lend credence to her claims of somehow having foreign policy experience. But, she also doled out another line that is turning out to be just another lie and it is a line that it seems most MSM outlets are giving her a pass on thus far. To further puff herself up, Clinton said of her Bosnian trip, “I was the first first lady taken into a war zone since Eleanor Roosevelt during World War II.” This was also a line that the Clinton White House spoon fed the press in 1996.

This claim of Hillary's "first visit since Eleanor" line turns out not to be true, though. It seems that Pat Nixon, wife of president Richard Nixon, earned that distinction back during a 1969 trip to Vietnam.

The AP allowed the Hillary "first" claim to go uncorrected. Newsweek uncritically regurgitated the "first first lady" line, too. The Washington Post also repeats the line without correcting the record. There were several TV reporters that also repeated the line without noting that it was not true. For those of you listening to the Rush Limbaugh show on Tuesday, Rush played several reporters back in 1996 repeating the White House claim that Hillary was the first since Eleanor to visit a war zone.

Unfortunately for Hillary's credibility, it just isn't true. Yet the MSM does not seem to be interested in correcting this one.

Thanks to the folks at the New Nixon Blog, we have an excerpt from the Pat Nixon Bio. The following is an excerpt from Pat Nixon: The Untold Story (1986) written by daughter Julie Nixon Eisenhower.

The [July 1969 South Vietnam] visit marked the first time that a First Lady had been in a combat zone, although another First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, had also visited troops on her numerous travels to England and throughout the South Pacific, Australia, and New Zealand during World War II. National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger later described how the President and his party were “whisked from the airport to the Presidential Palace in a helicopter that seemed to go straight up out of range of possible sniper fire and then plummeted between the trees of [President] Thieu’s offices. I never learned how often the pilots had rehearsed this maneuver or,” he added ruefully, “how its risk compared with that of sniper fire.” While my father met with President Thieu, Madame Thieu hosted a formal tea for Mother in the Presidential Palace. The palace was an armed fortress, with sandbags in every entrance to douse fires from shelling and bombing attacks. Mrs. Thieu told Mother she had sent her children to the country, out of danger of the war zone, and how much she missed them.

Precautions for Mrs. Nixon’s security made her contacts with the Vietnamese during the one-day visit very difficult. At the Thuduc orphanage, where 774 children were housed, the hordes of Secret Service agents, reporters, military guards, and the din of the army helicopters whirring overhead all but drowned out any words spoken inside the buildings constructed years before by the French. As Mother emerged from the hospital, she saw fighter jets above the thick shield of circling helicopters. Their shrill whine added to the overpowering noise.

Soon she was in an open-door military helicopter flying 18 miles north of Saigon to visit the 24th Evacuation Hospital at Long Binh. Occasionally she caught glimpses of scattered U.S. troops on the ground below. The agents who traveled with her were armed with machine guns and bandoliers loaded with cartridges slung across their shoulders. In the news dispatches filed from Saigon on July 30, one correspondent wrote:

“Mrs. Richard Nixon risked her safety and possibly her good relations with some diplomats, brass and bureaucrats in Vietnam today. In trips to an orphanage, to a GI field hospital, and her exchanges with high-ranking officials, she made it clear she had little time for high-level formalities and wanted to see more of the men who were hurt and the children who had suffered….At the hospital, officials tried to tell her all about what they do. She brushed them aside. ‘I don’t really want to learn about the hospital. I came to see the boys,’ Mrs. Nixon said.”

She spent more than two hours there, visiting personally with each man, sometimes jotting down names and addresses so that she could let families at home know their sons were all right. [White House press aide] Pat Gates remembers how Mother several times got down on her knees next to the wounded men in order to talk privately with them.

Do not forget in our rush to eliminate Obama that the Clintons are some of the biggest liars in the history of American politics.

(Photo credit: Associated Press. AP Caption: "In this 1996 file picture, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton kisses Emina Bicakcic, 8, from Sarajevo who dedicated a poem to her shortly after her arrival at the Tuzla Air Base. Clinton says she made a mistake in claiming that she came under hostile fire when landing in Bosnia as first lady 12 years ago.")

Read more at Newsbusters.org.

[Sax]

Please make sure that you have all of your personal belongings and watch your head as you exit the plane.

[HIDEK6]

It’s “derring do.”

[stuartcr]

Read twice, send once.

[Little Pig]

I think you may be right. This one’s tougher to call than the sniper story, for a couple of reasons. The first being that information about the Nixon administration is practically taboo, so little if anything ever refers to it. It is entirely possible that whoever gave her that factoid really didn’t even think about Pat Nixon and Viet Nam. Second, Pat’s visit was so low-profile (based on the description of it) that it’s possible to overlook it, even if someone did do a cursory search. I know she’s known as a calculating, never-leave-anything-to-chance (almost) person, but this one really could have slipped through the fact-checking.

Another angle might be that she didn’t want to link herself to either the Nixon administration or the VN war, both of which are political death. Plus, Nixon was (ostensibly) Republican, whereas Roosevelt was a Dem. WWII also plays a lot better with the public than VN.

[Mobile Vulgus]

oops, I wrote that headline wrong didn’t I? It should read “First”

My bad!

[Liberty Valance]

Laura Bush arrives at the Presidential Palace accompanied by U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad and Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky in Kabul, Afghanistan Wednesday, March 30, 2005. White House photo by Susan Sterner

[proudpapa]

How does one forget whether or not they were shot at by snipers?

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

The only difference was it wasn’t a shame Elinore survived.

[Liberty Valance]

Laura Bush meets with grant recipients from the Afghan Women's Business Council's Artemis Program at Kabul University in Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday, March 30, 2005. (AP)

[Sax]

L.Bush: “I wore the shawl that had been presented as a gift, and together with the Ambassador and Paula from the State Department, we strolled across the grounds before having a fine lunch featuring some delectable local cuisine.”

Juxtapose — H.Clinton: “My pulse raced as sweat poured down my brow. How many rounds just impacted on the ledge a mere six inches above my head? Was I hit? Would I even feel it? I didn't matter, there were more important things now.....”

[savedbygrace]

"I'm Hillary Clinton and this is my flip."

[Dr. Ursus]

The eight year old girl was really a Bosnian special
forces officer.

[swampdweller]

Pantsuits on fire...I stand corrected!

[samtheman]

She was actually led to this lie by the media. If they’re going to cover up the fact that Pat Nixon went into a combat zone, why shouldn’t Hillary expect they would cover up for her anything she said? She was double-crossed!

[Verginius Rufus]

Maybe it was all those consonant clusters in Emina's poem that made her think she was hearing sniper fire.

Might as well try that one out since nothing else seems to be working.

[BOBTHENAILER]

oops, I wrote that headline wrong didn’t I? It should read “First”

No worries...it was only a "miss-stroke"

We all do it...ask Hillary

[toddlintown]

“And as always there is the moron to criticize someone for a TYPO....get a life”

And as always there is the moron to criticize someone for criticizing a TYPO....get a life

[toddlintown]

“oops, I wrote that headline wrong didn’t I? It should read “First”

My bad!”

“Fist” and “Hillary” in the same sentence is scary.

[Mobile Vulgus]

Of course we MUST also point out that now there is always a guy to criticize someone for making a typo, criticizing a guy who was criticizing the guy making a typo, criticizing the guy who is criticizing the guy for criticizing the guy making the typo.

I’m getting vertigo here...

[Wavrnr10]

I only sent it once ......stuart