Hillary "lies" but Obama simply "errs...."

[suston96]

Aide says Obama erred on Kennedy tie

By Michael Dobbs
Washington Post / March 30, 2008

WASHINGTON - Addressing civil rights activists in Selma, Ala., a year ago, Senator Barack Obama traced his "very existence" to the generosity of the Kennedy family, which he said paid for his Kenyan father to travel to America on a student scholarship and thus meet his Kansan mother.

The Camelot connection has become part of the mythology surrounding Obama's bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. After Caroline Kennedy endorsed his candidacy in January, Newsweek commentator Jonathan Alter reported that she had been struck by the extraordinary way in which "history replays itself" and by how "two generations of two families - separated by distance, culture, and wealth - can intersect in strange and wonderful ways."

It is a touching story, but the key details are either untrue or grossly oversimplified. Contrary to Obama's claims in speeches in January at American University and in Selma last year, the Kennedy family didn't fund a September 1959 airlift of 81 Kenyan students to the United States that included Obama's father.

According to historical records and interviews with participants, the Kennedys were first approached for support for the program nearly a year later, in July 1960. The family responded with a $100,000 donation, most of which went to pay for a second airlift in September 1960.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton acknowledged yesterday that the senator from Illinois had erred in crediting the Kennedy family with a role in his father's arrival in the United States. He said the Kennedy involvement in the Kenya student program apparently "started 48 years ago, not 49 years ago as Obama has mistakenly suggested in the past."

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/03/30/aide_says_obama_erred_on_kennedy_tie/

[leftofcool]

1. Of course

[sellitman]

2. It's not like he was there.

Hillary lied about an event in which she was supposedly in. That's a bald faced lie.

[TheWraith]

21. Exactly. Trying to spin this as being equal is dishonest in the extreme.

Obama got a small fact of history wrong, something that happened a couple years before he was born. Hillary made up a story out of whole cloth, something that she supposedly experienced.

Equal? Not at all. That's like saying that being mistaken about when the first Barbary Coast war was is equal to perjury.

[izzybeans]

3. Wow

yeah this is equivalent to the lies about Bosnia for sure.:sarcasm:

[Pirate Smile]

4. She was telling a story of what happened to her. He was telling a story about something from before

he was born. He wasn't a personal witness.

There is a big difference.

[GoldieAZ49]

7. trianglation?

his lies are not as big as her lies so it is ok for him to be a liar....got it.

[cascadiance]

14. No, it's because she was there that we KNOW she knew the truth...

... and is not giving it to us the way it happened. Now in Obama's case unless you can PROVE that he KNOWINGLY distorted the truth about those events, then he wasn't LYING (which implies malice, not just erroneous statements). There IS a difference!

It's like I recall when I briefly worked as a store detective a long time ago, they drill into you that you not only need to prove someone walked out of the store with something, but that they KNOWINGLY were trying to steal it, not just accidentally taking it with them when they didn't mean to. One gets an arrest, the other just gets a stop to ask for the store's property and you move on. And there might be malice in the latter, but if you don't KNOW it to be malice, you let it go.

[MannyGoldstein]

5. Wow.

Incredible.

[GoldieAZ49]

6. His parents met at the Selma march!!!!

Oh, wait, that was a lie too, he was 4 years old at the time of the Selma march.


History is such a bugger to Obama. Just rewrite it for him and everything will be ok.

[TheWraith]

23. Except that he NEVER SAID THAT.

What he said was that his parents were brought together by what was stirring in America, like what happened at the Selma march. He never said that it they met at Selma, or anything of the kind. It was an anachronistic analogy, but not a lie.

[GoldieAZ49]

27. Bullshit listen to him here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdYByptC8mY

[Kaylee]

8. Not the same. ....

I would probably cry foul if HE were the one on the plane in 1959 and is now getting the facts wrong. Even then, mistaking the details about when someone donated money to a cause you may have benefited from is NOT the same as an making up an experience where you were "supposedly" in mortal danger.

He wasn't even born and is probably going on what he was told by his folks. I have to cut him slack on this one.

[City Lights]

9. This Obama "err" is like the Clinton "I was named after Sir Edmund Hillary"

"err." Clinton's Bosina lie is in a league of its own.

[skater314159]

10. Hillary DID LIE. This won't cover it up either.

The American people are pretty stuipd, but not even this stupid.

Barack wasn't born yet :eyes: so he had to rely on what his mum and dad told him.

HILLARY WAS THERE and she LIED to make herself look better.

Geeez. :eyes:

[NashVegas]

13. He Can Still Count

And know that four years old is a bit much to be considered a twinkle in Dad's eye on the march to Selma.

[Vinca]

11. I say we ask Ted Kennedy to verify this particular story.

Somehow, I suspect he will. It's highly unlikely Senator Kennedy and Caroline would share a stage with Obama, hear this and not correct it if it was untrue.

[flor de jasmim]

12. Plus, for all WE know, this could have been the way his MOTHER presented things to him...

Perhaps there are good examples that the OP could have presented, but this is not one. I suppose as a linguist I should be pleased at the amount of parsing that has gone on in this election (I was always the nit-pickiest one around), but even I feel worn out.

If we continue with this linguistic microscope, there is absolutely no end (particularly since language is ambiguous and many times we can only infer the real intention of the speaker).

However, if we take a macro approach, there are some real differences in the way the CANDIDATES THEMSELVES have spoken. The only time I remember Obama saying something that could be construed as real mocking was the comment, "You're likeable enough." That pales in comparison to Hillary's statements of SHAME ON YOU, the CELESTIAL blah-blah-blah, and statements that put McCain in a more favorable light than Obama, just to name a couple.

[stray cat]

15. I thought Hillary just mis-speaks?

[MethuenProgressive]

16. Yet another Obama lie for His followers to excuse.

This guy can get away with murder!
Maybe Jessee Jackson Jr was right?

[Raffi Ella]

17. Interesting isn't it?

If Hillary were the one to say these things and they were found out to be untrue they'd be screaming for her head on a stick. She'd be called an outright liar by the same people here who are trying to excuse and justify Obama.

[anonymous171]

18. This is more like the "Edmund Hillary" tale.

[indimuse]

19. Obama -Wright - Rezko - stories keep changing...because..Obama

can NOT tell the truth, He would be asked to step down immediately. So, he continues to lie and the MSM, continues to DRIP!

[anonymous171]

20. OK--Seriously drop the rezko thing. It's been around forever and the MSM hasn't picket it up.

You know why? BECAUSE NOTHING IS THERE!

[indimuse]

25. If you read more, you would know..

THE REASON. you have NOT heard more about the REZKO thing in the MSM.. is their is a high ranking REPUKE involved and they are trying to cover. REzko trial will keep producing info we should all as Dem's be concerned with. Obama is a :LIAR!!

[OzarkDem]

26. Rezko: drip, drip, drip

More will come out, as it should.

[DemGa]

22. Perhaps facts just elude the Senator -- like his own mentor's

rantings and views. And therefore, Obama's penchant for ignoring reality manifests in his just saying sh**.

Or it could be he is a bald-faced liar.

[OzarkDem]

24. Obama's lies to ride JFK's coattails are funny

but also very pathetic. What an a$$ he's made of himself with this one. Of course, the MSM will try to save it for the GE.

[Life Long Dem]

28. Quote "either untrue or grossly oversimplified"

When you have your answer then come back and say so.

[Life Long Dem]

29. Yeah, find that answer out because I'll base my whole decision

on this. NOT!!! What does this have to do with me? Good lordy lord lord!

[BlooInBloo]

30. Shorter suston96: WAAAAHHH!!!!! whinewhinewhine

[VotesForWomen]

31. actually no, Obama is infallible, so he doesn't even err. Hillary of course is Satan. nt

[Ewellian]

32. and don't forget, her supporters

are uneducated, burying their heads in the sand, in need of therapy, and of course, delusional.

[Johnny__Motown]

33. So, his father was on a different plane.. oops..... was there sniper fire?