I’ve been an outspoken critic of what I view as untruthfulness from the Clinton campaign, but I think the talk about this story is nonsense. Sen. Clinton does not give the woman’s name nor references the particular hospital and is relaying a story a citizen told her. At it’s core, the story of hospitals refusing care to people is not - sadly - something out of the blue. The problem Sen. Clinton is discussing affects millions of people across the country and she’s been a strong advocate of health care reform in her career and in this campaign.
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Whether or not she mentioned any specifics, she clearly was referring to that story. I think when one is telling a story to support an opinion that someone has failed in their responsibilities, then one should at least select a story that is true. And if uncertain, one should, you know, make a few phone calls.
This is not an issue of her not telling the truth but of her having a crappy fact-checking operation. It’s not that hard to find hospital horror stories. I know a woman with ovarian cancer right now who works because she can’t afford to lose her health insurance. There are millions of these stories. She needed better people around her than she had.
Ah, yes. Truthiness lives again. The Clinton disregard for facts and truth is something we do not need any more of.
Hillary Clinton has been in charge of two major efforts in her life. One, the Clinton Health Care reform effort in her husband’s presidency. Two, her own campaign. Both have been mismanaged horribly. Ready from day one? I think not.
All she would have to do is watch Sicko, and there are people right there, willing to go on camera and tell it. There seems to be no good reason to use second-hand hearsay stories in a stump speech. People might not think you’re being honest with them.
She needed better people around her than she had.
I think that’s true across the board.
I really don’t follow you on this one, Oliver. Untruthfulness is bad and worthy of outspoken criticism, but repeating an inaccurate story is okay because she’s vague about the specifics?
Would it be okay for her to tell an inaccurate story about, say, some politician running for high office as long as she doesn’t mention his name and is just passing on some story someone told her?
.
This just provides another reason why I’d find it very hard to vote for Clinton if she somehow ends up with the nomination. She’s repeated surrounded herself with incompetent people, repeatedly demonstrating her bad judgment. You want a medical horror story to include in your stump speech? Accurate ones aren’t hard to find and, as duros pointed out, plenty of folks who’d even let you use their names when telling them.
Oliver, if you or I passed along a story that we could not verfiy and told it anyway, we would be branded liars. That is the cold, hard truth and why Hillary needs to be held to that standard as well.
Do you really think that the Clinton campaign, in addition to being a campaign, needs to act like the NY Times fact checking department? A woman told her a story on the trail, Sen. Clinton repeated the story because it was not something out of the ordinary and there are many like it out there. Considering the many things her campaign has actually been deceptive on, this one doesn’t cut the mustard for me.
Other candidates have gotten completely eviscerated by the press for telling stories that weren’t completely vetted. Al Gore told a story that was 95% correct, but all the news droids wrote about was the 5% that was incorrect.
Clinton and her campaign people either know this or they should. It is a sign of incompetent management to let this get away from them. If it was one story that happened in something of a vacuum she may have gotten away with it, but her recent screw ups that are proven totally untrue multiple the attention of ANY indication of playing loose with facts.
Ready on day one!
… except for that little competent leadership thing.
Do they need to act like the NYT fact checking department? No. They need to be better than that.
The only check on the NYT fact checking is their own Ombudsman and a few critical blogs whereas her campaign is fact-checked by the entire NYT. These stories aren’t hard to find. Just fact check them for authenticity before you make them the cornerstone of your healthcare scare story.
Good for you, Oliver.
This post is one of the reasons I keep coming back here; you try to be fair.
Loved her on Leno the other night cracking jokes about the sniper fie thing. Nice way to cover it up that she “misspoke.”
Of course, if Obama had gone live with a story like this hospital thing, Wellstone would be all up in his grill for lying, right?
Oliver, YES she needs to check her facts. She was not relaying a story about soup she had for lunch that day. She to refering to national health care. She is stating as a matter of fact that we have a serious problem in this country with respect to health care. She is a politician. A professional debater if you will. If she were to provide this story in a first year college class debate assignment, she would receive an F. That is the issue here. We need politicians that can provide convincing arguments towards policy decisions that face our country. Im tired of anectdotes that are not true. Im tired of debates which are full of sound bites. I wish we could have a real debate on health care (backed by facts), global warming, the war, pork spending, and the deficit. I hope to vote for a candidate this year that is honest, competent, and not power hungry, wanting to reward a long list of high dollar contributors. Let’s start today to demand MORE from our politicians.
I’ve read the story and looked at the video (of the officer telling Clinton what occurred) and truthfully I’m stumped. What is inaccurate about what Clinton said? The point, if there is a point, is that no one at this point knows what is true or not. What is the misstatement?
Video can be found here.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/7/164532/4960/454/491776
Excellent call, OW. The family of the woman who died is backing Ms. Clinton’s account.