Clinton Repeats Old Lies In CNN Debate, Including On Guns And Libya

Last night’s Democratic debate included some of the topics I predicted yesterday, but there were no big new fabrications from Clinton. Instead she once again showed that she does not understand that fact-checkers exist, repeating some of her old lies which have already been debunked. Plus Clinton also showed that she does not understand that there is a permanent record of what she has said in the past as she pretended she has always supported a $15 minimum wage.I can just imagine her as president, going to war with Orwellian claims that We’ve always been at war with Eastasia.

Guns came up once again despite fact-checkers having already debunked her distortions of Sanders’ position. As I pointed out on Wednesday, at least three  major fact-checkers showed that she was playing games with the math to blame guns violence in New York on guns purchased in Vermont.  The Washington Post Fact Checker gave her Three Pinocchios for this lie. Factcheck.org and PolitiFact also criticized her for her distortion with selected statistics, especially as guns from Vermont represent less than two percent of guns recovered and traced in New York. Clinton looks further dishonest when attacking Sanders on guns should voters recall that in 2008 Clinton ran as a self-described pro-gun chruchgoer.

PolitiFact also looked at Clinton’s claim that “Bernie Sanders ‘has been largely a very reliable supporter of the NRA'” yesterday and found it to be Mostly False. They even listed his grades from the NRA:

Year Grade
1992 D
1994 F
1996 F
1998 F
2000 F
2002 F
2004 D+
2006 C-
2012 D-

This hardly looks like a reliable supporter of the NRA.

Clinton also repeated her past distortions of Sanders’ position on Libya. This can turn into a major embarrassment or Clinton should more Democrats look at this issue. While Obama has often disagreed with Clinton on policy and ignored her recommendations, he did make the mistake of going along with her policy on Libya. Foreign Policy looked at how she continues to defend a failed policy in an article this week, also pointing out how she is more interventionist than Donald Trump and Ted Kruz. Making matters worse for Clinton, Obama has acknowledged how much a failure the actions were in an interview in The Atlantic, and called the failure to plan for after the intervention to be the worst mistake of his presidency in an interview with Fox.

Clinton’s strategy to reduce the harm from her mistakes in Libya is to falsely claim that Sanders voted for the policy. FactCheck.org debunked this:

The exchange was initiated by Sanders, who cited a New York Times story that identified Clinton as a key voice in convincing President Obama to topple Moammar Gadhafi in Libya. In an interview on Fox News on April 11, Obama said one of the biggest mistakes of his presidency was “probably failing to plan for the day after what I think was the right thing to do in intervening in Libya.”

During the debate, Sanders said, “Regime change often has unintended consequences in Iraq and in Libya right now, where ISIS has a very dangerous foothold. And I think if you studied the whole history of American involvement in regime change, you see that quite often.”

We took a look at this when the exact same claims were made by both candidates during the sixth Democratic debate. Here are the facts: On March 1, 2011, Sanders cosponsored and voted in favor of Senate Resolution 85. The resolution, which was nonbinding and passed by unanimous consent, called on Gadhafi “to desist from further violence, recognize the Libyan people’s demand for democratic change, resign his position and permit a peaceful transition to democracy. …” So Sanders is correct that the resolution did not explicitly authorize or advocate for military action, though it did call for Gadhafi to resign his position.

In an interview with Fox News in March 2011, Sanders made clear that he was wary of military intervention. “Look, everybody understands Qaddafi is a thug and murderer,” Sanders said. “We want to see him go, but I think in the midst of two wars, I’m not quite sure we need a third war, and I hope the president tells us that our troops will be leaving there, that our military action in Libya will be ending very, very shortly.”

However, as Clinton said, the resolution Sanders cosponsored also urged the United Nations Security Council “to take such further action as may be necessary to protect civilians in Libya from attack, including the possible imposition of a no-fly zone over Libyan territory.” Indeed, a couple weeks later, the Security Council did approve a resolution calling for a no-fly zone and calling on members “to take all necessary measures to protect civilians under threat of attack in the country.”

This is hardly the same as supporting the type of overthrow of a government by force and regime change which was supported by Clinton. Like with Clinton’s support for the war in Iraq and increased US intervention in Syria, Clinton’s policy in Libya was quite different from Sanders’ foreign policy views. Clinton should defend her own views and record, not pretend that Sanders either had the same position (as in Libya) or distort Sanders’ position (as on guns).

1 Comment

  1. 1
    KP says:

    Hillary and Dilma, sittin' in a tree …

Leave a comment