Lying Liars

In his 8/7/16 column in the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof compares what he says are Hillary Clinton's "fibs" versus Donald Trump's "huge lies." After noting almost equal poll numbers for veracity for the two candidates, Kristof tells us that it is "preposterous" that the two would be considered equally deceptive.

Based on data from Politifact, he states that 27% of Clinton's statements were found to be "false or worse," compared to 70% for Trump. He cites similar numbers from the Washington Post's Fact-Checker. Then, Kristof tells us that "critics ...claim that Clinton lied to the families of the four Americans killed in Benghazi, but fact-checkers have said the evidence is unclear." Really? We know from Clinton's emails that have been released that she was telling others privately afterwards that the attack was a terrorist attack. But publicly, she and others in the Obama Administration were telling the families of the victims and the American people that the attack was because of an anti-Muslim movie trailer. Of course, it was only two months prior to Obama's reelection, and the truth of ongoing terror would not play well with Obama's message that terrorism had been defeated.

Kristof does not excuse her fibbing about her emails, stating "her accounts of her use of private email servers have been consistently false or misleading." He is then "astonished" that "she continues to mislead by claiming that the F.B.I. director, James Comey, judged her answers truthful (he didn't)." So, Clinton does not lie, she simply says false things and is misleading. Kristof: "All this is junior varsity mendacity." Would that be the same way that ISIS is the J.V. team? And in what universe is lying about national security matters just "junior varsity mendacity?"

When Clinton recently appeared on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, she continued her - let's be polite - obfuscation. Clinton: "Director Comey said that my answers were truthful." What the FBI Director said, was that it appeared Clinton was truthful to the FBI. Then again, lying to the FBI is a separate criminal offense by itself. But when Comey testified before Congress he said Clinton did send classified emails on her private server (she denied it), and that the FBI found thousands of work-related emails that Clinton had not voluntarily turned over to them (she claimed that she turned over all of her emails). Recall that Clinton claimed to have set up the personal server, at least in part, because she only wanted to use one electronic device. Comey testified that she used multiple devices.

This past Friday, Clinton responded to a reporter's question about whether she "mischaracterized" Comey's testimony. Clinton: "...what I told the FBI, which he (Comey) said was truthful, is consistent with what I have said publicly." No, it's not. She is still lying! Clinton continued: "So, I may have short-circuited and for that, I, you know, will try to clarify." What in the world does that even mean? Whatever it is, it is world class obfuscation - not "junior varsity mendacity," as Mr. Kristof claims.

In the event you get your news from the New York Times, you should know that the Times had no interest in putting anything about Clinton's continued lying on Fox News Sunday in their paper edition. However, their Public Editor, Liz Spayd did discuss it in her online blog. Entitled "The Clinton Story You Didn't Read Here," Spayd explained how the Times ignored the story. Spayd: "Clinton's remarks were covered by several major news organizations, several of which pointedly challenged the Democratic nominee's candor. But nothing on the interview ever appeared in the Times, either online or in print." Not until Spayd's blog. Good for her.

Spayd gives us yet another instance in which the mainstream media simply cannot be trusted to fairly report the news. Is it newsworthy when one of the two major presidential candidates continues to lie about national security matters? Apparently not nearly as important as Melania Trump copying a few lines from Michelle Obama. That turned out to be a front-page lead story in the New York Times.