Monday, March 23, 2015

Hillary Clinton — Not Irish-American, but gets into the "Irish American Hall of Fame" — Also gets a "Lifetime Achievement Award" for the achievements of others


Hillary Clinton looks like she has doubled-down on one of her BIG LIES that didn’t fly in 2008  —  That she was part of the North Irish Peace Process  —   But in 2015 she had OTHER PEOPLE SAY IT, so it might be okay THIS TIME AROUND


During 2008, at least three different fact-check organizations said Hillary’s claims about her being part of the North Irish Peace Process were not accurate  —   She also got  “One Pinocchio for exaggeration” from the WaPo   —   the Boston Globe said that Hillary Clinton’s stories of bringing Protestant and Catholic women together became more dramatic with each retelling  —  And Daily Kos even said Hillary Clinton's taking credit for what others did viv a vis getting the Irish Women together was "Outrageous" 

At that time, in North Ireland, what people remembered about Hillary's part in all of it was her “Teapot” Speech  —  And that was pretty much it


Both the New York Times and the Washington Post recently showed their skepticism even to Hillary’s recently modified and very modulated approach to her role in the North Ireland peace deal during her current recycling of the story  

Even though the too-clever-by-half Hillary hedged her bets at the celebration of her “Irish America Magazine Lifetime Achievement Award” last week  —   She accepted it not for herself, but  “...on behalf of all the remarkable women that I met and admired in Northern Ireland....”   —   The Times and WaPo reported that principals at “Irish America”  were making the same inflated claims about Hillary Clinton's deeds during their 2015 event that she had concocted in 2008 


On March 16, 2015, Hillary Clinton was inducted into something called  the “Irish America Hall of Fame,” whatever that is  —   since many, if not most, great Irish Americans are not in it, and Hillary Clinton is in no way “Irish American.”  According to Irish America Magazine, the sponsor of the award, the former First Lady was "... being honored for her work on behalf of the Irish peace process...."  That Hillary had any real part in the “Irish peace process” remains controversial  — as if making false claims about one’s personal history is merely something that can be described as “controversial” ( See ““Hillary's Entry in Irish Hall of Fame Comes Despite False Claims of Bringing 'Peace' to N.Ireland  –  Embellishment pays” by Daniel Halper, 3/16/15, The Weekly Standard [http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/hillarys-entry-irish-hall-fame-comes-despite-false-claims-bringing-peace-nireland_888675.html]).


THE MEDIA AND THE FACT CHECKERS IN 2008

In 2008, the last time that she ran for president, when Hillary Clinton was making many hollow claims about her vast foreign policy experience, one of her biggest confabulations was that she “helped” to broker the 1998 Good Friday peace accords.  Most major news outlets and at least three (3) fact-check organizations had to yank hard on Hillary’s leash to bring her to heal about that overcooked chestnut.

In spite of making every effort to make Hillary Clinton’s claims look good, according to Politifact, “[Hillary Clinton] is perhaps best known in Northern Ireland for an Oct. 31, 1997, speech at the University of Ulster in Belfast in which she brought back a teapot that had been given to her in a previous visit....  In her memoir Living History, Clinton recounts her teapot speech and several other anecdotes about her visits to Ireland and Northern Ireland, but there's little in the book to indicate that she played a key role [in the peace process]....  In his book Making Peace, George Mitchell mentioned Hillary Clinton only in passing and he did not mention her in his speech when he was given a United Nations Peace Prize in 1998.... Clinton claimed that she ‘helped to bring peace to Northern Ireland.’... But based on our interviews and research, it's a stretch for [Hillary] Clinton to say so.... ” (See “A small but significant role” by Bill Adair, 3/10/08, Politifact
[http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2008/mar/10/hillary-clinton/a-small-but-significant-role/]).

In a very lengthy article looking at many of Hillary’s fabulous claims about herself,  Joe Miller of the fact-check addressed the question of whether Hillary Clinton’s activities ‘helped bring peace to Northern Ireland.’...” , his conclusion was even more terse and straightforward, tart and tangy than Politifact:  “[Hillary] Clinton has said that she ‘helped bring peace to Northern Ireland.’  Of course, ‘helped’ is a fairly weak claim, one that could be made by nearly anyone who contributed in a way that didn’t actively hinder the process....Irish officials are divided as to how helpful [Hillary] Clinton’s actions were, and key players agree that she was not directly involved in any actual negotiations....” (See ““Hillary’s Adventures Abroad –  We find some exaggerations in Clinton's claims of foreign policy experience” by Joe Miller, 3/13/08, factcheck.org [http://www.factcheck.org/2008/03/hillarys-adventures-abroad/]).

One of the most devastating pieces against Hillary’s Irish Peace claims in 2008 came from the Washington Post’s “fact-checker” Michael Dobbs.  Dobbs said that even the lead U.S. negotiator, Senator George Mitchell, said the former first lady was "not involved directly" in bringing about peace in North Ireland. According to Dobbs, “I just spoke to the Clinton administration’s leading Northern Ireland peace negotiator, who said that Hillary was ‘not involved directly’ in the diplomatic negotiations that led to the landmark April 1998 Good Friday agreement on power-sharing....” (See “Clinton and Northern Ireland” by Michael Dobbs, 1/10/08, Washington Post [http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/01/clinton_and_northern_ireland.html]).

A much quoted  Boston Globe article in 2008 noted that Hillary Clinton’s  stories of bringing Protestant and Catholic women together became more dramatic with each retelling,  however it also noted that her claim that she brought Catholics and Protestants together ‘for the first time’ seemed dubious.(See “Clinton trumpets role as Irish peace facilitator” by Marcella Bombardieri & Globe Staff, 1/7/08, Boston Globe [http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/01/07/clinton_trumpets_role_as_irish_peace_facilitator/]).  Those claims were further debunked by a piece in Daily Kos, whose author “LibDem” called Hillary’s self aggrandizement in describing her role in bringing the Irish wives and mothers together as “outrageous,” especially when compared to the courageous work that was done by the Irish women themselves (See “Hillary Exagerates Role in Northern Ireland” by Lib Dem, 3/5/08, Daily Kos [http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/03/05/469842/-Hillary-Exagerates-Role-in-Northern-Ireland#]).

THE NY TIMES AND THE WASHINGTON POST  —  SKEPTICAL OF HILLARY CLINTON’S CYNICISM

Right up front in its report about Hillary Clinton’s recent award from the folks at “Irish America,” the NY Times made it clear that there was a significant back story to all of it.  Times writer Amy Chozick opened by saying this: “The subjects of Ireland and tea made for an unpleasant brew in Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 2008 campaign for president. Her primary opponent, Barack Obama, once belittled her as having merely “had tea with” world leaders as first lady. Her husband defended her as “a peacemaker, not a tea maker.” Then she was accused of overstating her own contribution to the Northern Ireland peace process....” (See “In Accepting Irish-American Honor, Hillary Clinton Recasts Her Role in a Peace Pact” by Amy Chozick, 3/16/15, NY Times [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/17/us/politics/in-accepting-irish-american-honor-hillary-clinton-recasts-her-role-in-a-peace-pact.html?_r=1]). After showing that Hillary was shrugging all of that stuff off; and that she was tweeking the peace making story a bit, Chozik closed by a snarky bit, which highlighted the fact of Hillary Clinton’s closeness to Gerry Adams, still a suspect in a 1972 murder investigation.

The Washington Post coverage was a bit more focused on Hillary’s claims then (2008) and what was being said about Hillary now (at the 2015 “Irish America” event) ( See ““Hillary Clinton garners award for role in easing the Northern Ireland conflict” by Anne Gearan, 3/16/15, Washington Post/ Politics
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clinton-garners-award-for-role-in-easing-the-northern-ireland-conflict/2015/03/16/d80780f6-cbf6-11e4-a2a7-9517a3a70506_story.html]).  Ms. Gearan particularly noted that “Magazine editor Patricia Harty said Clinton was honored “for her role in helping to broker the Good Friday agreement” during the administration of her husband, Bill Clinton. ***  The event underscored Hillary Clinton’s long history with Northern Ireland... [and that s]he faced attacks during the 2008 campaign after saying she ‘helped bring peace to Northern Ireland,’ a claim she avoided making [at the “Irish America” event].”

Gearan and the Washington Post also made this clear: “Clinton played no direct role in fostering the 1998 peace deal but is credited with helping solidify support for the reconciliation effort. Her work bringing together women from both sides of the conflict served as a foundation for Clinton’s later work as secretary of state to include women in political and peace discussions....” It was also noted that “Clinton did not go into the particulars of her involvement [in obtaining the peace deal the during the Irish America gathering], while praising the roles played by others....”

LAST YEAR’S "HALL OF FAME" INDUCTEE  —   GUV MARTIN  O’MALLEY  —   DON’T THAT BEAT ALL; OH, AND DON'T FORGET IRISH AMERICA'S TOP OF IT'S LIST OF "50"  is VP JOE BIDEN

In an interesting bit of irony, last year’s inductee into the  “Irish America" Hall of Fame was none other than Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, one of Mrs. Clinton’s likely opponents for the Democratic nomination for President in 2016.

Oh, in another bit of irony, guess who tops the "Irish America" list of its " Top '50' " influential Irish-Americans ?  Another "none-other-than" type  —  another one of Hillary Clinton's possible challengers, Vice President Joe Biden.

11 comments:

  1. Gail,

    That should shut up ykw once and for all. Even she will learn to stop putting her hand on the hot stove eventually.

    You still haven't told the whole story about Niall O’Dowd. Ar you saving that for another day?

    ReplyDelete
  2. This post is absolute trash. It is filled with fabrications and outright lies and entirely mischaracterizes Hillary Clinton's critical role in forging lasting peace in Ireland. On March 16th Hillary was inducted into the Irish America Hall of Fame as a thank you for her years of commitment to peace in Ireland. Sinn Fein Gerry Adams, Irish American civil rights lawyer Brian O'Dwyer (son of Paul by the way), publisher Niall O'Dowd, former police commissioner Ray Kelly and so many others publicly praised Hillary for her work in bringing peace to Ireland. Indeed, Hillary did what others could not due to her keen negotiation skills and her way with bringing people together. Most importantly, it is the testimony of the women who live in Belfast who praised and thanked Hillary. So your post is full of malarkey. And Hillary looked stunning in her emerald green dress upon receiving her Waterford crystal bowl award. So there.

    Erin go Bragh Hillary 2016

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  3. RESPONSE: THE “MAYBE I’M JUST NOT GETTING IT” EDITION

    ANONYMOUS...AT 10:14 AM SEEMS TO THINK EVERYTHING THAT I WROTE THIS MORNING IS MADE UP BY ME — SINCE IT ISN’T, THAT COMMENT MAKER OBVIOUSLY DIDN’T CHECK OUT THE CITED MATERIAL

    MY POST ABOVE IS COMPLETELY FROM OTHER SOURCES [ BTW, SOME OF THE PRIMARY SOURCES QUOTED IN THE CITED MATERIAL ARE FAR MORE CRITICAL OF HILLARY AND HER ROLE IN THE NORTH IRISH PEACE PROCESS]

    Anonymous ...at 10:14 AM said this: “This post is absolute trash. It is filled with fabrications and outright lies and entirely mischaracterizes [sic] Hillary Clinton's critical role in forging lasting peace in Ireland....” If my post above is “absolute trash... filled with fabrications and outright lies....” then that is the fault of my sources: The Weekly Standard; Politifact; Factcheck.org; WaPo’s Fact-Checker; The Boston Globe; The Daily Kos; The NY Times and The Washington Post (and the information about Martin O’Malley and Joe Biden is from Irish America’s own web material).

    If you want a complete fabrication and an outright lie, it’s this bit from Anonymous... at 10:14 AM: “... Hillary did what others could not due to her keen negotiation skills and her way with bringing people together....” the real record is clear — none of that is true.

    AS FAR AS HILLARY CLINTON AND THE NORTH IRISH PEACE PROCESS: NO DOING WHAT OTHERS COULD NOT DO — NO NEGOTIATING — NO BRINGING PEOPLE TOGETHER ( Who hadn’t already done so on their own).

    Anonymous... at 10:14 AM also said this: “...Hillary was inducted into the Irish America Hall of Fame as a thank you for her years of commitment to peace in Ireland....” — PLEASE TELL ME EXACTLY HOW MANY “YEARS OF COMMITMENT TO PEACE IN IRELAND” HILLARY AND HER SUPPORTERS ARE TALKING ABOUT — You see that number just keeps changing. (In 2008, the biggest number was 15 years... That would have started Hillary off on the Irish thing in 1993, right ?)

    Anonymous... at 10:14 AM seems to have a problem — pretending to care about something, but not knowing very much about it. In this case, it’s the history of the North Irish Troubles and the Peace Process that led to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. If Anonymous... at 10:14 AM had a better background on these matters, there wouldn't be all this pointless defending of the indefensible Hillary as some kind of Irish peacemaker, something she clearly was not.

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  4. Hillary Clinton was an integral part of the team that helped to facilitate the Irish Peace Agreement. Hillary's role was to bring to the fore the voices of women in Ireland who were not being heard. This was extremely important work and Hillary was uniquely qualified to do this because of her commitment to women's empowerment. Your cited sources simply reiterate the lies promulgated by the Obama 2008 campaign for president in which he tried to diminish Hillary's work. Hillary developed a relationship with the Irish in the 90's and it continues to this day. She actually cares about the economy in Ireland and the education of Irish children. The Clinton Foundation has even raised funds to promote the economy in the North. Try as you and the GOP and the biased media will, you cannot erase the good work that Hillary has done. The honor bestowed on her on March 16th here in NY speaks volumes and should put to rest any lies that attempt to belittle her role. When I state that Hillary did what others could not, that is true. Others would not entertain the notion that poor working-class Irish women should be heard and have a voice at the table. Hillary changed that. So yes Hillary deserved the Irish America induction but more importantly she has earned and deserves every Irish American vote in November 2016. She has proven her commitment to our ancestral land when too often other leaders (including John F. Kennedy) paid lip service assisting the country of our forebears yet willingly through millions to other countries.

    Oh and as far as "How many "real" Irish were there at the induction? I'm sure no fewer than the number of "real" Irish who lined up Third Avenue yesterday in their Aran sweaters holding green beer.

    God Save Ireland Hillary PAC

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  5. RESPONSE: THE "INSISTING SOMETHING IS SO DOESN'T MAKE IT SO" EDITION

    THE PEOPLE WHO MADE THE PEACE IN NORTH IRELAND SAY THAT HILLARY CLINTON WASN'T A PART OF THE PROCESS

    "...Others would not entertain the notion that poor working-class Irish women should be heard and have a voice at the table...." AND WHAT EXACTLY DID HILLARY DO ABOUT THAT OR ANYTHING ELSE THAT ADVANCED THE PEACE PROCESS IN ANY WAY ?

    Actual participants in the North Irish peace process that led to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement said that Hillary did not participate. That includes the joint Noble Prize winners, who were participants, and the U. S. Representative who was the "honest broker," and who won the U.N. Peace Prize.

    That means as far as Hillary Clinton is concerned: NO DOING WHAT OTHERS COULD NOT DO — NO NEGOTIATING — NO BRINGING PEOPLE TOGETHER

    Plus, why should some phony "Irish America" award given to Hillary by such a dubious Clinton operative as Niall O'Dowd make any difference or have any meaning whatsoever ?

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  6. UPDATE: THE “IF IT BLEEDS – IT LEADS” EDITION

    MAYBE IT’S THAT SHARKS CAN SMELL BLOOD IN THE WATER — BUT THE NEW YORK TIMES HAS ANOTHER HILLARY CLINTON E-MAIL STORY “ON THE FRONT PAGE – ABOVE-THE- FOLD”

    HILLARY’S E-MAILS STORIES ARE NOW INTO THEIR FOURTH WEEK — AND THE DRIP – DRIP – DRIP YOU HEAR IS NOT THE ACID IN HER STOMACH — IT’S HER BLOOD HITTING THE FLOOR DROP BY DROP

    THE TIMES’ STORY SHOWS INSTANCES OF STATE DEPARTMENT E-MAILS THAT WENT BETWEEN SECRETARY OF STATE CLINTON AND HER TOP STATE DEPARTMENT AIDES — WITH BOTH SIDES TO THOSE E-MAILS USING PRIVATE ACCOUNTS — NOT A SYSTEM AND METHODOLOGY DESCRIBED OR SUGGESTED BY HILLARY CLINTON AT HER PRESS CONFERENCE TWO WEEKS AGO


    It’s four weeks into Hillary Clinton’s E-Mails kerfuffle. The story still has legs and shows that it won’t go away. For three Sundays in a row, discussions of the Clinton E-Mail problem made it onto the Sunday morning talk shows; and as the fourth week begins, the story has again landed on the front page of the New York Times.

    Here’s how the NY Times story by Michael Schmidt opened: “It was a grueling hearing. A month after the September 2012 attack on the United States diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, House Republicans grilled a top State Department official about security lapses at the outpost. *** Later that day, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton tapped out an email to a close adviser: “Did we survive the day?” she wrote. *** “Survive, yes,” the adviser emailed back, adding that he would continue to gauge reaction the next morning. *** The roughly 300 emails from Mrs. Clinton’s private account that were turned over last month to a House committee investigating the attack showed the secretary and her aides closely monitoring the fallout from the tragedy, which threatened to damage her image and reflect poorly on the State Department....” (See “In Clinton Emails on Benghazi, a Rare Glimpse at Her Concerns” by Michael S. Schmidt, 3/23/15, NY Times [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/23/us/politics/in-clinton-emails-on-benghazi-a-rare-glimpse-at-her-concerns.html?_r=0]).

    Where this article appeared is just as important as what it had to say — in the print edition of the New York Times for Monday, March 23rd, it appeared on the front page above the fold.

    Nonetheless, something very important was shown in Monday’s NY Times coverage of the Hillary Clinton E-Mail saga. What has been revealed about Clinton’s E-mails shows that Mrs. Clinton’s top aides at times corresponded with her about State Department matters from their own personal email accounts. This fact raises questions about Hillary Clinton’s recent assertions that she made it her practice to email aides at their government addresses so the messages would be preserved, in compliance with federal record-keeping regulations. In other words, there are now demonstrable instances of communications to and from the Secretary of State – to and from other State Department employees on THEIR private E-Mail accounts. Those E-Mails would not have been preserved on State Department servers in the manner previously described by Hillary Clinton and her camp.

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  7. ANOTHER UPDATE: THE “OLD PLAY OUT OF THE OLD CLINTON PLAYBOOK” EDITION

    WHEN DEALING WITH THE E-MAILS ISSUE — JUST TRY TO LAUGH IT ALL OFF WITH THAT PHONY HILLARY LAUGH

    HILLARY’S SPEECH AT THE SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM TONER AWARDS SHOWS THAT THE CLINTONS JUST DON’T VARY FROM THE OLD PLAYS IN THEIR CRISIS CONTROL PLAY BOOK — WHEN IN A CRISIS, JUST MAKE A JOKE OF THE WHOLE THING

    IRONICALLY, HILLARY’S “SERIOUS” SPEECH CONTAINED TALK ABOUT “IMPORTANT DEBATES IN [WHAT HILLARY CLINTON HERSELF CALLED] AN EVIDENCE-FREE ZONE”


    Taking a page out of the old Clinton Crisis Control playbook, “Hillary Rodham Clinton joked about her relationship with the press and her controversial private emails while speaking Monday night at a Syracuse University journalism prize ceremony” ( See “Hillary Clinton jokes with press about her email, privacy at Syracuse University event” by Mark Weiner, 3/23/15, syracuse.com/ Syracuse Media Group
    [http://www.syracuse.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/03/hillary_clinton_jokes_with_press_about_ending_zone_of_privacy_at_syracuse_univer.html]).

    Here’s some of what Hillary had to say "But I am all about new beginnings.... A new grandchild, another new hairstyle, a new email account. Why not a new relationship with the press? So here it goes: No more secrecy. No more zone of privacy. After all, what good did that do for me ?"

    Hillary Clinton then went on to deliver her “serious” remarks about the importance of journalism to substantive political debate in a media landscape changing with technology. It was in her “serious” non-joking remarks that she said the very problematic and possibly profoundly ironic statement: "I think the stakes are really high. — Too many of our most important debates occur in what I call an evidence-free zone."

    That is a very telling line coming from somebody who was weaned on Watergate, with its eighteen minute gap; who was mired in Whitewater with missing records and non-cooperating witness; and most recently, who simply deleted over thirty-thousand E-mail messages from her “personal account” that was also her exclusive E-Mail record of her “official” communications.

    In short, it's extremely ironic that Hillary Clinton was making remarks about an "evidence-free zone," so-called by Clinton herself, when perhaps she recently became history’s greatest creator/perpetrator of such an “evidence-free zone.”

    ReplyDelete
  8. It is so obvious Gale that you do not like Hillary Clinton for one reason: She is a woman and a powerful one. You, like all white male Republicans, do not believe in women's equality or that women should be in places of power making important decisions. You are right-wing GOP conservatives who still maintain the male chauvinistic view that women are subservient. It is clear indication that the women's rights movement is not finished. Thankfully, we have Hillary to bring us to crashing the final barrier in November 2016.

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  9. RESPONSE: THE "BADGE 714" EDITION

    THE STORY YOU ARE ABOUT TO HEAR IS TRUE. ONLY THE NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT

    THE NAME IS FRIDAY, SERGEANT JOE FRIDAY. DETECTIVE FRANK SMITH AND I WERE WORKING THE NIGHT SHIFT ALONG SEPULVEDA WHEN WE GOT A CALL ABOUT A WOMAN IN DISTRESS IN THE 3,427,116 BLOCK OF SEPULVEDA, JUST EAST OF THE 405 OUT BY LAS VEGAS

    WE TOOK THE CALL BECAUSE WE WERE ALREADY AT THE LOCATION AND HAD BEEN DEALING WITH THE "NICE LADY"

    The woman's name was "Jane Doe Potatoe"; and from the look and sound of her, she was a supporter of Hillary Clinton -- the 2015 version, not the one from back in 2008.

    After listening to her story about some lifetime award and Irish America Hall of Fame deal for Clinton in what seemed like a real time re-enactment of the event(s), I said, "Just the facts, mam..."

    She became acutely distressed, so Smith called it in and we responded, because we were already at the location.

    After hearing a rant about male chauvinism, breaking glass ceilings and an off-key version of "I am woman hear me roar..." with stanzas that I never heard before, I said, "Just the facts, mam..."

    She again became acutely distressed, so Smith called it in and we responded, because we were already at the location ..........

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  10. Being dismissive and condescending of the female viewpoint was exactly what Joe Friday did on TV so you emulate him well. And that just further supports the premise that Hillary is up against the usual sexism in the presidential campaign and she is at unfair advantage.

    ReplyDelete