Hardball had some fun this evening at Hillary's expense over the mystery of The Sniper Who Didn't Fire. Credit Politico's Roger Simon with the most devastating remark.
Hillary's heroic claim has been that "we used to say in the White House that if a place is too dangerous, too small or too poor, send the First Lady." Simon said what in retrospect might be obvious but something I hadn't previously heard anyone else observe.
ROGER SIMON: She says I was there because it was too dangerous for the President. It was too dangerous--so he sent his wife and only child? It makes no sense.
View video here.
Of course, we are talking about Bill Clinton here, but even so, score Simon with a good point made. Matthews ran with the ball.
CHRIS MATTHEWS: She said whenever the target, the place, was too small or dangerous they sent me . . . oh by the way—and Chelsea? I think you make a good point. If it was that dangerous and harrowing. But why would she describe in a Hemingway fashion: ducking, under sniper fire, the whole imagery. She conveyed it very well—except it didn’t happen.
Margaret Carlson got in her some licks of her own.
MARGARET CARLSON: I mean so vividly, and you know, Hillary doesn’t have that many authentic moments. When she’s describing herself in Bosnia, it, it sounded right, because “ducking,” “sniper” --
MATTHEW: Verisimilitude.
CARLSON: Verisimilitude. I rarely hear that word, Chris, because it’s not that authentic, that word.
MATTHEWS: I think it was downright Clintonesque [?]. What do you make, Perry [Bacon, of WaPo], can you throw another term at us here? How would you have such a splendid memory of something that didn’t happen? I mean we’ve all forgotten names, we’ve often forgotten other details, like where’s the damn keys in the morning when we’re going to work. But remembering a battle scene, in your own life.
PERRY BACON: I honestly have no idea. I actually attended that speech and I talked to one of her supporters afterward who clearly was sort of flailing almost in trying to describe, you know, a scene where, he was there too, he seemed to not recall the sniper fire either. He sort of, when I asked him he agreed it was unusual he couldn’t recall the, being shot at.
Come on, now. This was unfair. Surely at various times we’ve all been shot at–or not—and have found it hard to keep all the details straight.
