2008 Uh Oh. Now She’s Pissed Off Sinbad.
posted by on March 11 at 11:10 AM
Of course you’ve been following the whole debate about Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy experience, her harrowing adventures in Bosnia as First Lady, and her “tested and ready” ability to answer any and all red phones at 3 a.m. So you’ll need no recap before diving right into this rejoinder, from Sinbad, who was on Clinton’s allegedly-harrowing Bosnia trip in 1996:
Harrowing? Not that Sinbad recalls. He just remembers it being a USO tour to buck up the troops amid a much worse situation than he had imagined between the Bosnians and Serbs.In an interview with the Sleuth Monday, he said the “scariest” part of the trip was wondering where he’d eat next. “I think the only ‘red-phone’ moment was: ‘Do we eat here or at the next place.’”
Clinton, during a late December campaign appearance in Iowa, described a hair-raising corkscrew landing in war-torn Bosnia, a trip she took with her then-teenage daughter, Chelsea. “They said there might be sniper fire,” Clinton said.
Threat of bullets? Sinbad doesn’t remember that, either.
“I never felt that I was in a dangerous position. I never felt being in a sense of peril, or ‘Oh, God, I hope I’m going to be OK when I get out of this helicopter or when I get out of his tank.’”
In her Iowa stump speech, Clinton also said, “We used to say in the White House that if a place is too dangerous, too small or too poor, send the First Lady.”
Say what? As Sinbad put it: “What kind of president would say, ‘Hey, man, I can’t go ‘cause I might get shot so I’m going to send my wife…oh, and take a guitar player and a comedian with you.’”
Of course the Clinton campaign is firing back:
Defending Clinton against Sinbad the refuter, Singer said, “The sad reality of what was going on in Bosnia at the time Senator Clinton traveled there as first lady has been well documented. It appears that Sinbad’s experience in Bosnia goes back further than Senator Obama’s does. In fact, has Senator Obama ever been to Bosnia?”
Hils has never been known for personal bravery, it's not a Clinton trait ...
I can just hear Hillary's new talking point: "I have a lifetime of foreign policy experience. Sinbad has a lifetime of foreign policy experience. Senator Obama just has a speech he gave in 2002."
Has Bosnia been at war since Obama joined the federal political scene? I can see where it might be advantageous to criticize him for not going to other war-torn areas, but Bosnia? We're really going to criticize him for not going to Bosnia?
Sad as it is, I'd be willing to be that a very large percentage of voters don't care about Bosnia and couldn't tell you what the conflict was there 10 years ago when Hillary was First Lady.
Will-
This stuff is getting so fucking boring. You're hurting your candidate. Stop it.
Did she actually say that Sinbad has more foreign policy experience than Obama?
She's just setting herself up for late night jokes, and Sinbad's career comeback....
Anyone else starting to get a "Ms. Ratched" vibe?
jesus. do we really need to have the candidates enumerate which countries they've been to? would that make us all feel better?
i realize this primary season is dragging on a little longer than we're accustomed and we're getting down to the nuts and bolt at this point, but when you have campaign officials responding to statements from sinbad, we've officially arrived at stupid.
usually clinton comebacks are pretty good. they are subtle digs. not so much in this case; it just comes off as mean.
that said, i'm not sure you should debate a comedian -- even if said comedian isn't all that funny.
...the tyrant fears the well timed joke told the by the town drunk. -Aristophanes
has Obama ever been to Bosnia? what does that have to do with whether Bosnia was so dangerous for Hillary to go to?
BO08 may have walked into a haymaker on this one.
This is like the Iraqi Market scene for Hillary
The war in Bosnia was over as soon as Nato troops landed there. The Ohio accords were in place, the country was split up, and Belgrade had already been bombed. The cetniks had their homeland. The Bosnians had theirs. And Serbia was licking its wounds. That war was long over.
Those trips are not dangerous. Sinbad is right. Is like the politicians today who claim "theve been to Iraq". Bull crap, its all PR, theyve been to the green zone which is Disneyland with Burger Kings and Ice cream shops and movie theatres. Theyve talked to the troops and thats it. Theyve been escorted by a division. No politician is Ever in danger when they go overseas to war zones. Hell, the greenzone is safer than Skyway.
One time when I got bumped to first class Sinbad was in the seat behind me. But I wasn't afraid. Maybe Hillary was afraid because large African American men scare her.
By the way, here's the e-mail for Ferraro and the web address for employer in case you want to send her, or those that employ her, some love. gferraro@hfgcg.com. http://www.hfgcg.com/contact.html
(grin) so you don't like the truth, huh?
I never said any of them were. If you want to talk experience and bravery, you're forced to end up with John EternalWar McCain.
Which is the wrong choice.
The debate is the wrong one. It's a farce. And we all know it.
RonK, thanks for linking a pro-Clinton site. I trust everything that comes from it.
Good point, SeMe. Hell, I've been to Skyway; can I be Preznit?
Clinton's iteration of her foreign policy junkets is going to come back and bite her hard if she gets the nomination. The way she "brought peace to Northern Ireland", the way she "asked Bill to do something about Rwanda", now this death-defying trip to Bosnia -- these kindergarten foreign affairs are going to be cream pies to tear apart.
She obviously isn't saying that trip was a life-or-death situation -- she brought her teenage daughter along! She's saying she's had some experience going to tense foreign situations and meeting with foreign leaders.
Whether or not that is actually a qualification is one question, but Sinbad and the Obama campaign have said her experience isn't good enough to know how to manage foreign crises. Probably true, but what does Obama have?
Everyone needs to stop arguing for argument's sake.
I have been on a lot of vacations to foreign locales. Does that qualify me for president too?
@17,
What does Obama have? How about not puffing himself up with specious, trumped up claims of experience? As others have said, this crap will bite Clinton hard in the general election, if she makes it there.
I like the line about "Sinbad the Refuter." Makes him sound like an old-time Czar like "Vlaid the Impaler."
Oh my God, that "retort" from the Clinton campaign is lame. They're taking the time to refute the claims of fucking SINBAD? And then spinning it to attack Obama because he wasn't in Bosnia during the 90's? That'd be like McCain attacking Hillary for not visiting Hanoi during the Vietnam War.
Remember when Clinton and Obama used to argue in circles about health care mandates and try to out-pander each other on NAFTA and home foreclosures? I miss those days.
I'm waiting to hear how ECB is going to spin this one.
She is truly foolish. In any other profession she would be laughed right out the interview process for such resume inflation. Truly pathetic. And this is the kind of deception we will have to put up with if she is elected President
Good Lord. So just going to foreign countries gives you the foreign policy expertise to be president? Well fuck, I've spent more time in Israel than HRC and Obama combined. I speak Hebrew, and can lead a lost tourist from the Arab Quarter to the Jaffa Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem. Does that mean that I'm qualified to negotiate peace between Palestine and Israel?
To be fair, ALL politicos do it. They all Claim IVE BEEN TO IRAQ. They never say, I went to the green zone surrounded by the 101st rifle division.
Also, I dont know about Hillary, but Slick Willy was crucial in bringing peace to Ulster.
if was so dangerous one might ask why the pres sent his wife, sure. but one might also ask why his wife would endanger her daughter.
eh, i'm sure it was more tense then the average european vacation. i'm glad they all went, but to hype it up to something it's not doesn't seem to be the best idea.
@24,
If she uses deception to get shit done as president, what's the problem? The issue for me is how these statements are going to play in the general -- not well.
Yep, as an Illinois state senator Obama didn´t go to Bosnia. What a dreadful oversight, now come back to haunt him. Has there ever been a president other than Clinton that had two genocides happen on his watch? If Hillary is going to reference her time (literally) "in the White House", I`d shut up about Bosnia if I were her.
And what the hell is up with Geraldine Ferraro calling tokenism? THAT`s funny, because like, Geraldine Ferraro was for decades considered a comer for the presidency before she got the VP slot in `84, huh? And then stayed in the game with a lot of grassroots support, right? JESUS. Yeah, Obama`s background is part of who his and his understanding of the world. To fire a cheap shot like `wouldn´t happen if he were a white guy` is ludicrous. And if a `white guy` had written The Audacity of Hope I and a lot of people would want him to be president too.
I find examining my feelings this is coming down to a clash of generations and that clash is as necessary as the one of forty years ago. Hopefully this idealistic generation will not fall down on their committments and still have such colossal, unearned self-regard years later as the one they are fighting (through Obama) to dethrone.
Clinton Playbook, Rule No.1: PERCEPTION TRUMPS REALITY. For the uninitiated, this is perhaps the most essential precept to living a double-life. Case in point, one Mr. Eliot Spitzer, governor of the State of New York. By day, Mr. Spitzer rooted out criminal activity and, was handsomely rewarded. By night, Mr. Spitzer himself indulged in those selfsame activities. For which he paid handsomely. It doesn't help that just about every photo of Eliot Spitzer, includes a certain New York Senator. However, I shouldn't be surprised by all the cross-pollination between Hillary Clinton and the Democratic super delegate, governor. Perhaps not surprisingly, Rule No.1. (otherwise known as living a lie) may also be the sole rationalization for Hillary’s vast experience: http://theseedsof9-11.com
Quotes from the Clinton White House, as remembered by Sinbad: “I can't go ‘cause I might get shot so I’m going to send my wife ... oh, and take a guitar player and a comedian with you.”
Peggy
You really can't be so stupid, or can you?
The very virile Gov of New York likes to fuck a lot.
That why whores and escorts and call girls exist - and why they charge a lot.
What the screw does this have to do with Hilary Clinton? Was he fucking her?
Many men in most western cultures have screwed a whore or two. The ones that haven't have a lot of fantasies.
Don't be so silly. By the way, Gay men like male whores for the same reasons as their straight counterparts .... maybe with even less stigma.
What John said, without being so crass.
=)
HRC has nothing to do with Spitzer.
Come on Now. This thread is about her lie about the dangerousness of Bosnia .
Ex-Wife of Pardoned Fugitive Gave $400,000 to Clinton Library:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,98756,00.html
This sort of thing makes the Tony Rezko charge pale by comparision...wonder how Mrs. Clinton's tax returns are coming along.
Gitai @ 25
I'd be willing to give you a shot at it. The fact that you speaka da language, or at least one of them (and isn't Hebrew one of those weird languages that's really hard to learn because it reads right to left, or diagonally across the page and upside down or something?) and know your way around Jerusalem means that you're probably more qualified than most of the other people who have tried or are trying.
SINBAD IS THE MOST QUALIFIED.
SINBAD FOR PREZ 2008!!!!
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