Horse's Mouth: Kentucky Fried -Yet Another Wingnut Sliming of Hillary Proved to be Bogus

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Yet Another Wingnut Sliming Of Hillary Proven To Be Bogus
March 05, 2007

Another day, another wingnut tale proven to be highly dishonest. Today's exhibit of winger mendacity -- pushed today by Drudge, Fox News, and some of the big winger blogs -- concerns the southern accent Hillary put on in Alabama yesterday.

The Drudge headline links to this audio of Hillary speaking yesterday. If you listen to it, the main thing you'll hear is Hillary speaking in a southern drawl, saying phrases that sound like her own words:

"I don't feel no ways tired..I come too far from where I started from...Nobody told me that the road would be easy...I don't believe he brought me this far to leave me."

As you can see, this clip makes it sound like Hillary is adopting not just this drawl, but this language and this down-home grammar, as her own. The righties have been waving this around to prove what a phony Hillary is. This audio was promoted by, among others, PowerlineBlog, Free Republic, Instapundit, and Fox News, which linked to it under the headline, "Will the real Hillary please speak up?"

AUDIO LINK AT http://rawstory.com/showarticle.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.talkingpointsmemo.com%2Fhorsesmouth%2F2007%2F03%2Fyet_another_win.php

But as always, a simple fact-check shows this latest wingnut preoccupation to be highly dishonest. The audio clip Drudge linked to cherry-picked that quote and removed it completely from its context, which would have shown that Hillary wasn't adopting this accent or grammar or language as her own at all.

Rather, it turns out that Hillary was actually quoting the hymn lyrics of someone else -- while clearly and very openly imitating (not very well, it turns out) the cadences she thought the lyrics would traditionally have been delivered in. There was nothing phony about it at all.

Here's a transcript of the passage in question:

My friends, we have a march to finish. I will be reintroducing the Count Every Vote Act, to ensure that every voter is given the opportunity to vote, that every vote is counted, and each voter is given the chance to verify his or her vote before it is cast and made permanent.

We have to stay awake. We have a march to finish. On this Lord's day, let us say with one voice the words of James Cleveland's great freedom hymn, "I don't feel no ways tired/I come too far from where I started from/Nobody told me that the road would be easy/I don't believe he brought me this far to leave me."

And we know -- we know -- we know, if we finish this march, what awaits us? St. Paul told us, in the letter to the Galatians, "Let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due seasons we shall reap, if we do not lose heart."

See? The audio Drudge and all these other hapless wingers promoted reproduced the hymn lyrics as Hillary's words, without sharing the fact that she was quoting someone else. It's so misleading that all you can do is laugh at the audacity of it.

Look, Hillary's real sins here were being corny as hell and painfully tone deaf. But phony this wasn't. You'd think that after having so many of their silly tales blow up in their faces these wingers would start checking the facts once in awhile -- if only to stop making themselves look so damn foolish all the time.

http://rawstory.com/showarticle.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.talkingpointsmemo.com%2Fhorsesmouth%2F2007%2F03%2Fyet_another_win.php

Rather, it turns out that Hillary was actually quoting the hymn lyrics of someone else -- while clearly and very openly imitating (not very well, it turns out) the cadences she thought the lyrics would traditionally have been delivered in. There was nothing phony about it at all. Watch for yourself:

Snip...

Look, Hillary's real sins here were being corny as hell and painfully tone deaf. But phony this wasn't. You'd think that after having so many of their silly tales blow up in their faces these wingers would start checking the facts once in awhile -- if only to stop making themselves look so damn foolish all the time.

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