It couldn’t hurt
Posted by Ron Coleman on August 23, 2007
Instapundit says, regarding the demonstration from the record that Bill Clinton was — surprise! – lying when he wagged the Famed Finger of Falsehood and claimed he had tried to knock off (the now dead, thank God) Osama bin Ladin, “This won’t help Hillary.”
Well, literally true: It won’t make the slightest difference! Hillary voters are in complete denial about any aspect of blame or responsibility any Clinton could ever have for their actions, or suffer from full-body BDS, or they would not be Hillary voters. “This won’t help her” — in the literal sense that it is not “a plus” — fine. But harm her? It won’t cost her a single vote.
I use Bill Clinton in my work all the time. My work as a lawyer is in the field of litigation, and I frequently have to help witnesses prepare for their depositions. As part of that preparation, I always tell them this, more or less verbatim:
Don’t even try lying. Who was the best liar in our lifetimes — the world champ? Right, Bill Clinton. He was the greatest. And what happened to him? He got caught, hung up. Almost no one is a good enough liar to keep it going, so if your conscience doesn’t prevent you from lying under oath, at least learn the lesson of Bill Clinton. Just tell the truth.
UPDATE: Looks like there are other ways besides lying to frustrate a lawyer taking your deposition, anyway. Or at least there were.
LATE UPDATE: Heh.
August 23, 2007 at 3:42 pm
I agree with you that Hillary’s supporters don’t give a damn about things of this sort. I almost emailed instapundit to that effect when I read his post but didn’t because he probably gets ten thousand emails a day.
I disagree with you on one point though. Many, you among them, insist on insisting that Bill Clinton is a good liar. Doing something alot doesn’t mean you’re good at it. Clinton is a terrible liar. He keeps getting caught, afterall. Saying Clinton is a good liar is rather like saying that the guy in San Quentin on his fifth prison stretch is good at armed robbery.
August 23, 2007 at 4:10 pm
You have Clinton Derangement Syndrome in a bad way. You’re so desperate for some way to keep Bill Clinton in the forefront of you mind (”I use Bill Clinton in my work all the time”
you have to pretend he was “the best liar in our lifetimes” even though you were never fooled by him (I think I’m safe in guessing that) and you probably can’t find any of your friends who couldn’t see through him pretty easily, and his supporters for the most part just accepted his lying as part of the package.
Bill has been out of office for years. Get over it already.
August 23, 2007 at 4:49 pm
I voted for Bill Clinton, Bob. He turned out to be a despicable person, but not because he lied to me. I don’t think he lied about the kind of President he would be; I think he was just not strong enough of a man to govern properly or to avoid the abuse of partisan rhetoric and, ultimately, to befoul the Presidency. He is also lying today for political purposes, however, so I cannot get over him so readily. Indeed if his spouse had not — solely by virtue of her association with him, retained solely be virtue of her toleration of his contemptible personal behavior — built a career, and a potential presidency, by standing on his shoulders, believe me, I would not give him all that much thought at all.
August 23, 2007 at 6:54 pm
Bill Clinton really wasn’t a very good liar; he told stupid lies, lies easily fact checked, and lied even when the truth would have served him better. “OK, you got me!” would have worked much better than “I never had sex with…that woman, Miss Lewinsky!”. There would have been no impeachment and he could have salvaged the last 2 years of his presidency. “But I never inhaled!” underscored the fundamental character flaw of the man: He simply couldn’t take responsibility for his actions.
Clinton unfortunately got a pass from the media and the left because they wanted to believe his lies, particularly the ones about how he was committed to their causes and ideals. Desperate for a viable standard bearer they gambled away their honor and reputations to put him in office and keep him there. They were terribly wrong and are still too stubborn and blinded by pride to admit they were wrong. As a result they risk another era of the Prevaricator-in-Chief sleeping around the White House.
August 24, 2007 at 12:35 am
[...] It couldn’t hurt [image] Instapundit says, regarding the demonstration from the record that Bill Clinton was — surprise! – [...]
August 24, 2007 at 10:04 am
Bill Clinton is a successful liar in at least one sense: He was President of the United States for two terms despite a lifetime of prevarication.
As to whether the lies themselves were indeed successful, why do we assume the ones he was caught at are representative? My guess is that these were not the only lies he told. We can speculate as to percentages, but do you think they caught him at half?