LIES! LIES!

Ah the ways of politics!

I used to hate politics. "But Nat," you may ask, "how can you hate politics if you're planning to run for President in 2040?" Simple, my friends; I'm running for corrupt and selfish purposes that have nothing to do with the political process. And so last year I paid little attention to politics, mostly because this was back when there was still football and baseball on television.

However, since those ended and since we still have awhile before the NBA finals (D-troit!) begin and before baseball starts back up again, I've had to occupy my rapidly decreasing attention span on the horse race (donkey race?) that is the Democratic primaries.

It's actually pretty entertaining. Not because of the issues, ideals and principles at stake. To hell with that. The real meat is in the bullshit being slung around the television and internet.

Here's an example of grade-A bullshit:

One of the candidates is named Hillary Clinton. She says that people should elect her because she has experience in foreign policy. One of the little anecdotes she's shared on several occasions deals with the time that she was landing in Bosnia in 1996. Quoth Clinton:

"I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind
of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads
down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."

What a riveting story! Hillary Clinton risks her life to be in Bosnia for her country! And all of this while she was on a USO tour with Sinbad! That's the kind of leader I want, the type who will risk her life to open for Sinbad! Although, does it not seem highly unlikely that they would send the First Lady into an active combat zone? That seems kind of strange, almost bordering on unbelievable.

Wait, what's this You Tube link?

Oh, so that's why it borders on unbelievable: because it is unbelievable.

Not only was Hillary not under fire from snipers when she landed, but there's actual major network news video footage showing her waltzing off the plane with her daughter, calmly meeting with foreign dignitaries and giving cheek kissed to a little girl. There is absolutely no sign of snipers, bullets, firearms or any other source of danger. And once this is pointed out to Clinton on the campaign trail, what is her response?

"I misspoke."

Misspoke? Misspoke? Are you kidding me? Misspeaking is when you accidentally call your first grade teacher "mom."

How did Clinton misspeak? When she said "sniper fire" did she really mean to say "cute little Bosnian girl kisses?" "I remember landing under cute little Bosnian girl kisses?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. When I said 'ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles', what I meant to say was stroll leisurely with my teenaged daughter and foreign dignitaries to the vehicles. My bad."

Unless, of course, the little Bosnian girl turned out to actually be a sniper and everyone had to run to their cars for safety after the cute cheek kisses were over and the little Bosnian girl started shooting. My guess is there would probably be video footage of that, though.

She didn't misspeak. She fabricated, invented, and exaggerated to the point of untruthfulness. In short, she lied. I mean, we can still say that, right? The word lie isn't banned from the dictionary, right?

Of course, in the grand scheme of lying it's probably not really that big of a deal. I mean, how many of you put Microsoft Office under your resume's skill list even though you only know how to use Word and are actually quite frightened of Excel? Except, of course, I was applying for a low level administrative job and not President.

It's just facinating because you're not allowed to just call bullshit in politics. When I'm running for President in the year 2040, you can count on me doing these two things constantly: (1) Calling everone else liars, and (2) Running for my life from cute little Bosnian sniper girls.