Yet Another Wingnut Sliming Of Hillary Proven To Be Bogus-and shame on DUers who fell for it!

[trumad]

Another day, another wingnut tale proven to be highly dishonest. Today's exhibit of winger mendacity -- pushed today by Drudge, Fox News, and some of the big winger blogs -- concerns the southern accent Hillary put on in Alabama yesterday.

Here are the details. For much of today the Drudge Report has been running the following enormous banner headline:



The Drudge headline links to this audio of Hillary speaking yesterday. If you listen to it, the main thing you'll hear is Hillary speaking in a southern drawl, saying phrases that sound like her own words:

"I don't feel no ways tired..I come too far from where I started from...Nobody told me that the road would be easy...I don't believe he brought me this far to leave me."

As you can see, this clip makes it sound like Hillary is adopting not just this drawl, but this language and this down-home grammar, as her own. The righties have been waving this around to prove what a phony Hillary is. This audio was promoted by, among others, PowerlineBlog, Free Republic, Instapundit, and Fox News, which linked to it under the headline, "Will the real Hillary please speak up?"

But as always, a simple fact-check shows this latest wingnut preoccupation to be highly dishonest. The audio clip Drudge linked to cherry-picked that quote and removed it completely from its context, which would have shown that Hillary wasn't adopting this accent or grammar or language as her own at all.

Rather, it turns out that Hillary was actually quoting the hymn lyrics of someone else -- while clearly and very openly imitating (not very well, it turns out) the cadences she thought the lyrics would traditionally have been delivered in. There was nothing phony about it at all. Watch for yourself:

http://blip.tv/file/get/Tpmmedia-HillaryIDontFeelNowaysTiredBiggerExcerpt835.wmv

Here's a transcript of the passage in question:

My friends, we have a march to finish. I will be reintroducing the Count Every Vote Act, to ensure that every voter is given the opportunity to vote, that every vote is counted, and each voter is given the chance to verify his or her vote before it is cast and made permanent.

We have to stay awake. We have a march to finish. On this Lord's day, let us say with one voice the words of James Cleveland's great freedom hymn, "I don't feel no ways tired/I come too far from where I started from/Nobody told me that the road would be easy/I don't believe he brought me this far to leave me."

And we know -- we know -- we know, if we finish this march, what awaits us? St. Paul told us, in the letter to the Galatians, "Let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due seasons we shall reap, if we do not lose heart."

See? The audio Drudge and all these other hapless wingers promoted reproduced the hymn lyrics as Hillary's words, without sharing the fact that she was quoting someone else. It's so misleading that all you can do is laugh at the audacity of it.

Look, Hillary's real sins here were being corny as hell and painfully tone deaf. But phony this wasn't. You'd think that after having so many of their silly tales blow up in their faces these wingers would start checking the facts once in awhile -- if only to stop making themselves look so damn foolish all the time.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2007/03/yet_another_win.php

[mrcheerful]

1. The sad thing is facts mean nothing to wing nuts and putting out facts just makes you one

of those there god darn librials thats keeping us hard working church going christ ians from gaining our god giving rights to force religion as an amerikan government policy on those who don't worship the way we do. You God darn librials are godless and you are trying to destroy our freedom to own guns and shoot our neighbors in the face when they let their dog do his biddiness in our yards. Excuse me aunt mommy is a calling me to dinner where uncle daddy will teach me how in the good book sheep are a mans best friend. Well I aint gots no sister/cousin, yet.

[Tellurian]

14. Brace yourself, because every day there will be LIES about Hillary..

coming from the MSM...Whats worse, are the LIES propagated here!

[Evergreen Emerald]

2. good God, are these the same wingnuts who listen to Bush's southern drawl?

Do they not see the hypocrisy of their attack?

[MedleyMisty]

6. He doesn't fake it very well

because I don't hear anything like a southern accent in his voice.

[Catherine Vincent]

3. MSNBC and CNN jumped on that too.

And who says there is no conservative media?

[polmaven]

18. Bill-O' says so!

That's who! And who's going to argue the unbiased opinion of Falafel
Bill-O'?

Huh? Huh? Not me! I don't want no Fox Noise coppers coming to MY neighborhood!!!! :scared:

[scarletwoman]

4. I have no idea what Drudge posted, or what any wingnuts are saying.

I DO know that I heard a clip of Hillary's speech today on NPR on my way home from work and my first thought was: "WTF? Where the hell did she pick up that phony Southern accent?"

It sure sounded ridiculous to me.

[DemBones DemBones]

8. Did you hear Obama's phony Southern accent? He even said "y'all."

For that matter, did you read the OP??? Hillary was QUOTING when she spoke with a Southern accent.

[Clark2008]

11. And what we're trying to explain to you is that THAT is NOT

how it's being played down here.

They are playing the quote without context and it sounds ridiculous to our Southern ears - as though she's making fun of us.

Look, I can tell a person or two about the context, but I'm not talk radio. I can't play the entire thing and make them realize what she was doing.

She should have known better than to try this in our media environment. Sad, but true.

[Kelly Rupert]

15. Even in context it's laughable. n/t

[scarletwoman]

23. I read the OP. All I was relating was my own reaction to hearing a clip of Hillary's speech on NPR.

I thought I made that clear in my post.

And no, I did not hear any clips of Obama's speech.

sw

[w4rma]

5. I wish them luck in helping prevent her from winning the Democratic primary. (nt)

[Kelly Rupert]

7. She's still faking the drawl, which was the complaint.

Nobody was complaining about her cornpone diction; they were complaining about her brand-new drawl (and don't say "oh, she's from Arkansas," because she's from Arkansas like Bush is from Texas). Hillary faked a drawl. Bush fakes a drawl. Both are stupid, and both are worthy of ridicule.

She gave the entire speech in that ridiculous accent. And really, don't try to claim it was because she was quoting. People don't drop into a Boston accent to quote Kennedy, unless they're being comedic. People don't drop into a British accent to quote Shakespeare, unless they're being haughty and uninformed. People don't fake accents to quote poems, speeches, or hymns. If they do, they sound fake and pretentious. Hillary sounded fake and pretentious. Trying to work up outrage against the right for "making this up" is silly.

Now, the fact that this is even being carried by the media is silly too. This is a non-story, and a little bit of disgusting character assassination. But it isn't false. She faked an accent when she didn't have to. Let's not lie.

[DemBones DemBones]

9. Some people pick up accents easily, especially when they

have lived in the area before. Hillary lived in Arkansas for years.

What about Obama's drawl? What about Obama saying "y'all"? When did he ever live in the South?

I'm even willing to give W a pass on his weird accent because he lived in Texas until high school so he likely had an accent when he lived in Texas, had to lose it at Andover and Yale, and it comes back out at times. It sounds phony but it may be more truly "him" than the way he usually speaks.

People's accents should be the least of our concerns.

[B Calm]

12. Kinda like Bush when he speaks Spanish?

[Kelly Rupert]

13. I totally agree that this is a complete non-issue.

However, it was fake. It was not "picked up." A picked-up accent sounds genuine but usually underdone; like a hint of an accent laid over their natural speech. This just sounded like she was trying too hard. It's a bogus non-issue. But it isn't Right Wing Lies.

[truedelphi]

24. So her sin in this is being a poor mimic??

That's sad. A lot of people cannot mimic others - and it's hardly like she is claiming to be Jonathan Winters or Robin Williams (or any of a host of comics who can do it right.)

My son can do a spot dead-on imitation of Bill Clinton - and during the late nineteen nineties when I knew the inner phone numbers of the Clinton White House, I was always trying to get him to call the WH Chief of Staff and say something like, "Due to it being Saint Paddy's day soon, is there any way we have enough money in the Treasury to purchase Ireland? If so, I will be issuing Executive Order 48765 to allow for the purchase, and the remainder of the funds in Treasury should be used for a giant blow out party in Dublin."

My son always had this theory that I ws trying to get him jailed or worse, but since he was only a college student, I doubted the jail time theory, and I thought it might actually get him his fifteen minutes of fame.

[MethuenProgressive]

10. The Right Wing anti-Hillary talking point was posted here, too

more than once.
No one is as blind as he who will not see.

[Gabi Hayes]

16. I saw a clip, and it was so horrendously embarrassing I had to click it off.

WHAT was she thinking?

it is a minor point, true, but this entire discussion serves only to illustrate just how powerful the RW attack apparatus is, and that ALL democratic candidates will be savaged with an onslaught of lies and ridicule the likes of which will make Gore and Kerry's campaigns look like placid little afternoons in the countryside.

the ONLY thing the fascists are good at, besides waging eternal war, is waging an eternal political campaign, using any and all means necessary

they will SAY anything

they will DO anything

how does one fight that, when the media are only too eager to do their bidding?

OK...that's enough for one day

[Southsideirish]

20. She was droppin' those "g's" like they were red hot coals. Yikes - too funny!

[Kelly Rupert]

22. I believe you mean, "lahk they was red-hot co-walls."

'Cause that's the way southern-folk talk, and they sho'nuff 'preciate when y'all speak to 'em lahk they talk.

:eyes:

[Horse with no Name]

17. I haven't been online much today nor did I watch much television

My first glimpse of this clip was on Tucker.
It was readily apparent that she was doing something OTHER than just speaking that way.
I wasn't sure what it was...but it definitely wasn't what they were painting it as.

[opihimoimoi]

19. This is HOW they win...by resorting to DARK and unscrupulous attacks and Distortions?? Some kinda

Values they have....worse...they share with other Pubs on How to LIE CHEAT STEAL

The GOP is filled with a few good peeps who got snookered...but for the most part...the Pubs are Liars and Cheaters who will do anything to get THEIR WAY.....

the bastids are gonna get their day yet....like they did Nov 7th last year....

[Porcupine]

21. Her voice sounded tired or strained to me.

I didn't hear much in the way of a drawl. Get her a voice coach.