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Candidates Battle Over Exaggerations | 167 comments (167 topical)

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I agree... (none / 0) (#18)
by ROK on Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 11:11:33 PM EST
That was a bit much, but calling it a non-story and refusing to consider that this raises some concerns is a little much for me as well.

I'll change it to "exaggerate her involvement in it". Better?

[ Parent ]

Works for me :) (none / 0) (#56)
by nycstray on Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 11:46:52 PM EST
I agree, she did exaggerate, but there was also truth to the 'story'.

I really don't know why she did, it may have just grown. When I was trying to dig up news stories from then, I found other interesting articles about other trips. She does have some good background on interacting with the different cultures and situations that weren't all tea and cookies. I need to go back and look at one of the orgs she started up (I worked on a video for it back then, which I totally forgot about until I was researching this week!) I think it may have been in relation to some of these trips.

[ Parent ]

Memory is strange (5.00 / 3) (#59)
by Jeralyn on Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 11:52:18 PM EST
It's a three phase thing, acquisition, retention and retrieval. If something is off in one, it affects the others. It's a subject those of us who challenge inaccurate eyewitness identifications know a lot about. The witnesses usually aren't lying, they are mistaken, and it's from a combination of factors.

Tonight my son and I were discussing an incident of major importance to him when he was in high school. I was so off on even critical facts. I was totally suprised since my memory seemed vivid. It was vivid, but it was inaccurate.

[ Parent ]

Was your son... (5.00 / 1) (#125)
by sar75 on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 05:47:04 AM EST
...ducking for cover from possible sniper fire.  

Please.  This is more than just "misspeaking."  This is deliberately inventing details about something that did not happen, something anyone would remember, in order to make a political point.  There's no "memory defense" here.  

[ Parent ]

false memories (5.00 / 1) (#135)
by Molly Pitcher on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 07:41:02 AM EST
If an event is dramatic enough, you'd think all participants would recall it the same way.  No way!  My son, age 2, sustained a cut by his eye.  Big sister and I rushed him to the doctor (after hours) and held the boy down during stitching.  Thirty years later, my husband told her and me about holding his son down while the doctor stitched.  Husband was truly shocked to find it wasn't so.  What we live and what we hear may become confused and create false memories.

Same thing happen to HRC?

[ Parent ]

You Know... (5.00 / 1) (#150)
by AmyinSC on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 09:27:07 AM EST
HRC also said she was sleep-deprived, and just said the wrong thing.  She wrote abt it in her book, and got the names mixed up.  That happens.  She wasn't reading a script, she was talking.  Like no one has EVER misspoke before?

The difference with Obama, though, is that he has INFLATED his resume on numerous occasions, and put it in PRINT.  That is a big difference to me.  If he got names confused or something when he was talking extemporaneously, that's one thing, and you just gotta let it go.  But that is not the case here.  His has been systematic.

The worst part of this is how this ONE misstatement of hers has been made the narrative for her lying abt ALL Of her experiences, and is being used to diminish ALL of her international experience.  There's even a poll abt this on AOL asking if this now puts to rest her saying she has MORE experience than Obama.  Most people are saying yes!  It is a logical fallacy, but it being used pretty well by the MSM and Obama camp.  Really frustrating.

[ Parent ]

Like the above... (none / 0) (#158)
by AmyinSC on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 10:05:11 AM EST
In which I used the wrong verb tense - sorry - pain meds post-surgery...

[ Parent ]
I thought sleep depravation was the worst (none / 0) (#166)
by fuzzyone on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 11:08:50 AM EST
part of her explanation given the 3 a.m. ad.  Sort of hilarious really.

[ Parent ]
It was written (none / 0) (#167)
by Raheem on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 11:17:22 AM EST
the comments were actually written about her dodging bullets... she also said the same thing months earlier in Iowa... it was a lil more than a "misspeak"

[ Parent ]
Absolutely True (5.00 / 1) (#159)
by Claw on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 10:06:49 AM EST
It's a very common misconception that trauma makes memory better.  There's actually quite a bit of evidence suggesting the opposite is true.  This is particularly damaging to criminal defendants because victims of traumatic events are very prone to saying things like "I could never forget that face."  In fact, many Innocence Project exonorees were convicted with eye witness ID and testimony.  I'm pretty sure every single one of our exonorees here in GA were ID'd by eye-witnesses.  
Sorry to go a little O/T. I guess (and I agree with Jeralyn; it's a non-story.  About as relevant to her ability to lead as Wright's comments are to Obama's) it would be interesting to find out whether she ever had to run, head down to a waiting vehicle because of sniper fire.  If she did, she may well be telling the truth about misremembering.  If not, she was probably exaggerating to bolster her foreign policy cred.  Either way, I don't really care.


[ Parent ]
You're totally wrong about the pilot (none / 0) (#179)
by tree on Thu Mar 27, 2008 at 03:18:10 AM EST
First off, numerous other people on the plane attested to the fact that the plane had to make a corkscrew landing and that the passengers were told to sit on their flak jackets. And as for your supposed pilot of the C-17, I know he's a total phony. How do I know this? Reports of the flight at the time listed the pilot as CHERYL Beineke. Yup, that's right, the pilot was a female.

Gee, maybe you just misremembered what you read? Maybe you just imagined it.

And BTW, its Tuzla in Bosnia, not Tarzla and there is no Tarzla in California either. There is a Tarzana though. Another case of misremembering on your part no doubt. And its a faulty memory of something that is only a few days old, too. What a shame.

[ Parent ]

So, she wasn't playing politics? (none / 0) (#65)
by ROK on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 12:03:07 AM EST
Do you think that she honestly believed her inaccuracies to be fact?

[ Parent ]
yes I do (5.00 / 2) (#75)
by Jeralyn on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 12:21:23 AM EST
she was inaccurate, not intentionally lying. She knew others were on the trip.

[ Parent ]
So... (none / 0) (#132)
by proseandpromise on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 07:23:31 AM EST
Obama is bad because he took his kids to church, and Hillary is good because she took her kid to a sniper-filled, photo-op, war-zone?  Got it.  Nothing but straight shooters here at TalkLeft.  But boy, that DailyKos sure is biased and mean.

[ Parent ]
It was clearly not intentional (none / 0) (#76)
by Manuel on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 12:22:49 AM EST
There is no way she did it on purpose when it could be checked so easily.  Masterminds like the Clintons wouldn't make a mistake like that.

[ Parent ]
My visual memory is better (none / 0) (#70)
by nycstray on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 12:09:29 AM EST
than my 'other' memory. But I was also trained to 'capture' and 'record'. My overall memory is better about things that mean something to me vs 'stuff'. I often have people relaying past events to me and I just nod and smile, lol!~. I guess it would be the initial retention with me, then. If it was 'stuff', I have a hard time retrieving.

Interesting about the event with your son. It's usually the reverse with my mom and I. We do tend to remember my more 'humorous' moments the same though {blush}

In the past few years, my friends and I have started blaming lack of memory on downloading our brain making room for new info ;)

[ Parent ]

You need to read the book (none / 0) (#81)
by zyx on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 12:29:47 AM EST
"Where did I leave my glasses"

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18953734

It's really kind of counterintuitive as to how errors creep into our memories--there is a section on that.  Very interesting stuff.

[ Parent ]

Oh sorry (none / 0) (#83)
by zyx on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 12:32:59 AM EST
about the ugly link but that interview was really pretty fabulous and I thought the book was worth a trip to the library for sure.


[ Parent ]
Memory (none / 0) (#82)
by Nadai on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 12:32:30 AM EST
I've had the same experience - vivid but wrong.  I can clearly remember one event happening to me which actually happened to my youngest sister.  In another "memory", I've conflated two events that happened 3-4 years apart into one, even making the later event the "cause" of the earlier one.  And those are just the "memories" I know are wrong.

[ Parent ]
Eh (none / 0) (#89)
by zyx on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 12:39:37 AM EST
My link to that book doesn't 'splain the kind of memory thing that I'm thinking about.  One thing that startled me is that a memory we retrieve often is subject to having errors inserted.  It's like every time you take it out you make a not-so-great xerox and that's what gets put back in the memory bits of the brain.  Do this often and you compound the errors.  I would have thought something you think of often would be better-remembered and, well, sharper.

I have some memories that seem very vivid that I am quite certain were just dreams.  They must be dreams that have recurred or something, and just seem completely real.  Some are from when I was about five or six, but some are relatively recent.  They seem pretty real, and I have no clue about the childhood ones.

[ Parent ]

Playing (none / 0) (#133)
by 0 politico on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 07:29:29 AM EST
politcis is expected.

As for as memories are concerned, if we all had perfect memory we would either be forced to be better people, or we would all be in perpetual trouble.

One thing to note, the video seemed to show that she came in on a military transport vice AF-2 or a charter.  My recollection is that this is not a normal mode of transportation to places that are of no real secuirty concern to visiting dignitaries.

[ Parent ]

Candidates Battle Over Exaggerations | 167 comments (167 topical)

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