Clinton eats words, micro-media gags

[DeepModem Mom]

Chicago Tribune: Clinton eats words, micro-media gags
By Mark Silva

In the modern-day, microscopic campaign for the White House, a few words can be viral.

Consider the volatility of Barack Obama's later-revealed words at a closed-door San Francisco fundraiser about the bitterness of working-class voters who "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them.'' Or the explosiveness of Hillary Clinton's very public retelling of her landing, 12 years ago, at Tuzla Air Base in Bosnia: "I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base." Or the confession of John McCain, who holds the political patent for Straight Talk, as he explained one day in the New Hampshire campaign that: "The issue of economics is something that I've really never understood as well as I should. I understand the basics, the fundamentals, the vision, all that kind of stuff.''

In a true, macro-campaign for the White House, none of this would amount to much of anything. In the big picture, we might worry about a candidate's vision for the health of the American economy, and indeed the health of the American people, or a candidate's strategy for America's role in the world, and America's security. But in the minute-by-minute, word-by-word deconstruction and demolition that oils the engine of the 24/7 media machinery, and the epidemic contagion of information on the Internet, these few words acquire an importance that far exceeds any real significance.

We are told, by the talking heads, that these mal mots are supposed to tell us something about the candidates. Really? Are we to believe that Obama, whose mother turned to food stamps at one point, has no empathy for common folk? Are we to accept the notion that Clinton is exempt from the human foible of innocent embellishment? Are we to think that McCain, once chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, knows nothing of economics?...

Now comes the newest slide in the microscope of this protracted campaign: Clinton's reminder of campaign calendars past....This wasn't the first time that Clinton had made reference to Kennedy's tragic campaign in 1968 - yet now predators would have us believe that Clinton was telegraphing some suggestion about tragedy in the 2008 campaign....Obama, too, spent a long time explaining what he had said at that fundraiser in San Francisco about working-class voters: "It's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.''...

***

A misstatement without much meaning - like the rest of them.

http://weblogs.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/blog/2008/05/clinton_eats_words_micromedia.html

[madeline_con]

1. "... innocent embellishment..." ????????????????

There is no need to "embellish" to this degree. Was she perhaps trying to make a boring trip seem more fun? "Gee, what if we were being fired on? Wouldn't that be cool?"

She didn't "misremember" either. You don't just "forget" whether you were under fire or not. the first lady and Chelsea would NEVER NEVER be sent into an area that was under attack.

[Bob Dobbs]

2. Obama's statement was not inflamatory in context, indeed compassionate.

It was taken out of context by the corporate media when it was handed to them by the Hillary campaign.

Hillary's lies are just that, prevarication.

Big dif.