No one left to lie to
Hitchen’s analyzes the character of Bill Clinton in regard to critical actions undertaken during his presidency. In particular Hitches examines “the Monika Lewinsky affair” and Clinton’s response to the impeachment process. Includes an analysis of “triangulation”, ie, Clinton’s political strategy of playing “the left” against “the right” in order to promote his personal ambitions and satisfy his “lust for power”.
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What Hacker News says
- From http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/10/03/us/politics/hillary-bil...
But privately, she embraced the Clinton campaign’s aggressive strategy of counterattack: Women who claimed to have had sexual encounters with Mr. Clinton would become targets of digging and discrediting — tactics that women’s rights advocates frequently denounce.
The campaign hired a private investigator with a bare-knuckles reputation who embarked on a mission, as he put it in a memo, to impugn Ms. Flowers’s “character and veracity until she is destroyed beyond all recognition.”
In a pattern that would later be repeated with other women, the investigator’s staff scoured Arkansas and beyond, collecting disparaging accounts from ex-boyfriends, employers and others who claimed to know Ms. Flowers, accounts that the campaign then disseminated to the news media.
By the time Mr. Clinton finally admitted to “sexual relations” with Ms. Flowers, years later, Clinton aides had used stories collected by the private investigator to brand her as a “bimbo” and a “pathological liar.”
Mrs. Clinton’s level of involvement in that effort, as described in interviews, internal campaign records and archives, is still the subject of debate. By some accounts, she gave the green light and was a motivating force; by others, her support was no more than tacit assent.
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The Clintonian strategy of attacking, slandering, and blackmailing his accusers is a matter of historical record. And there are many people in the know who said she was a driving force behind it, while others claim she merely acquiesced to it. You can read Hitchens recount the sordid affair here:
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/1999/05/christopher-hitchens-...
Or read No One Left to Lie to for a more in-depth look.
Now you don't have to believe she was the one driving the bus in the smear campaigns against her husband's accusers, even though plenty of people who were there at the time have said she was. But it does show that Politifact is being especially uncharitable to that claim, when they simply could have said it was disputed.
- I dont view him as any bigger liar than any other politician, and I do view him as a liar. That is of little concern to me as I dont expect anything other than policy making that puts liberty first. And to be very explicit, many of my favorite people are liars of some sort. That is not a meaningful metric for me. The 10k household GDP increase and aggravated school marms, is meaningful to me.
However, that said I didn't vote for Clinton after reading 'no one left to lie to' (and her debate performances). Nothing that came out on Trump really offended me, I dont mind plainly stating.
In fact here are lies from Joe Biden that I could not look past:
* Lied about graduating in the top half of his class at law school. He was 76th in a class of 85. This is a neat one because Trump could get away with it because he doesnt sell himself as a moral busybody.
* Lied about graduating with three degrees from undergraduate school. Again a terrible lie for the person pandering to the population of America who needs outsiders to find them 'smart'. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1j0FS0Z6ho)
* Plagiarized a speech from another politician. This is egregious given the branding around the Democratic party. Silly.
* Accused the person involved in his wifes accident of being drunk without reason, after knowing better (pity party, lets be honest).
Those above are all from previous Presidential runs. Im not even talking about saying he wasnt going to ban fracking and then banning fracking.
To make it extremely clear: I would not vote for a person who claimed the wage gap myth is real when given the choice to instead vote for a buffoon.
- Araji was the source of the NYT article; what I find interesting is the rhetorical trouncing dispensed by Hitchens.
Although the essay was published in 2005 and Hitchens died in 2011, were he alive today, I highly doubt he'd have much to say in the defense of Hillary Clinton, considering he wrote the book "No One Left to Lie To: The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton."
