A Lie By Any Other Name

Story 1:
Former First Lady Hillary Clinton and daughter Chelsea are on a plane flying into Bosnia. Once they land, they calmly exit the plane, are welcomed in a brief ceremony on the tarmac, where they meet an eight-year-old local girl, and then they proceed to the cars at a normal pace. (backed up by news footage)

Story 2:
Former First Lady Hillary Clinton and daughter Chelsea are on a plane flying into Bosnia. They land "under fire," are told to get their bullet-proof "stuff" on, and they run, ducked over, to the cars to get away to safety. (refuted by news footage)

The first account, by all accounts---from Clinton, other passengers on the plane and the media---is what really happened. The second account is the story she has been telling in the past few months, until those pesky reporters called her on it.

Oops, both she and her spokesperson said. She "misspoke."

Hmm . . . part of the beauty of words is their preciseness. With the right words, you can make another person see/hear/feel/experience exactly what you've seen/heard/felt/experienced.

Granted, words can be vague, too. With the wrong words, or the so-so ones, your experience can and often does turn into something totally different to someone else.

Now, I'm not picking on Clinton. I'm not even that interested in the two vastly different accounts she's presented of the same occasion. What pisses me off is the explanation: she "misspoke." It's a common answer politicians get when they get caught being less than truthful.

Misspeaking can be a lot of things, like saying capacious instead of capricious, exaggerate instead of exacerbate, Oklahoma instead of Texas. Misspeaking is also when you let slip that your friend who told her boss she had to go to a funeral was at the spa instead. Misspeaking in all its forms, though, is unintentional. A slip of the tongue, speaking out of turn.

In this case, Clinton didn't "misspeak." She exaggerated. She embellished. To be very blunt about it, she lied. It wasn't unintentional; it was a deliberate rewriting of history. Sure, it sounded better; when you're looking to impress someone, going in under fire, the plane zigging and zagging, and running for your life is waaay more impressive than a perfectly normal landing and sedate walk to the car.

When did it become acceptable for politicians to "misspeak?" When did we stop holding public officials accountable for their truthfulness or lack thereof? No one cares anymore. No one even expects honesty or veracity from the people charged with running our cities, states and the federal government. Someone gets caught in a lie? Oh, well, everyone lies, don't they? Everyone cheats on their taxes and their constituents and their wives. Who cares?

Besides me? Rachel11:29 AM