I don't see the evil in Clinton's hospital story.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/04/06/clinton.hospital/index.html

What I read about in the above account of this scenario is:

Clinton attended a house party in Ohio.
A person at the house party told her the story of a woman who lost her baby and her life because of having no medical insurance.
The story moved Clinton, so she added it into her stump speech.
Clinton repeated the story in her stump speech.
The hospital in question said they can't verify the story, but that they also can't disavow it.
Clinton discovered that the hospital questioned the veracity of the story, so they removed it from the speech.

My question is: Where is the evil here? (Underhandedly, my question is, if the hospital can't disavow it, then why did they feel the need to go public with their discomfort with it? Did they get a phone call from the Obama camp?)

~Writer~

I'm up against the tyranny of the majority here, so here's my :popcorn:. Fire away! :P

a deputy sheriff told her the story and never mentioned the name of the hospital because he wasn't sure of it. The hospital in question just assumed they were the ones being talked about. The hospital is now back peddling.

because if the story is true, they are in very, deep doo-doo.

I also saw this story as more of an example of how broken the health care system is. Whether the details of the story are all completely accurate was never the issue for me because I know that this indeed happens all the time.

It will, however, be very interesting when (if) the real details come out. The facts remain that a baby and a woman died and I suspect that someone in the system has some liability for that.

you have an obligation to find out its veracity.

Otherwise it is a false accusation, like any other false accusation.

IMHO Anyone who is bothered by a stump speech, feel good or bad story just has nothing better to talk about.
Politicians tell feel good heart tugging stories all the time..I hate it but they do.
To me it is sad that they feel that they have to prove they empathize with the common man.
It is another non issue for us to bitch about during a slow time..

( :hi: )

If you are ruinning a national campaign for president, you CKECK OUT EVERY "STORY" SOMEONE TELLS YOU before you incorporate it into your stump speech..

I decided NOT to correct my typo :evilgrin:

You can't just go around sharing every tale of woe that you hear. When you do that, you destroy your credibility and undermine your efforts to get the word out about REAL people who are REALLY suffering.

It's not like there aren't enough true horror stories out there, just get your overpaid staff to actually DO SOMETHING. Like research. Find these people, verify there story, and share it with the American public. And then tell us how you're going to govern so as to prevent people from getting the shaft in a similar fashion in the future.

It ain't rocket science.

It was completely untrue that the mother was turned away - never happened.

Clinton never used the name of the patient or the hospital. And the details are still quite murky as to what actually happened in this case. The hospital itself has breached patient confidentiality and they seem to be acting like they have something to hide.

Or so it seems from the minority camp. :banghead:

But it's pretty darn stupid to run with a story that your campaign hasn't fully vetted.

The woman wasn't on minimum wage, living off tips and without health insurance. She was a manager of a Pizza Hut who had health insurance.

Her family is livid with Senator Clinton over it: http://www.nypost.com/seven/04062008/news/nationalnews/a_painful_lie_105295.htm

Michael Moore reported over 27,000 people submitted stories of being underinsured to him while he was in production of SiCKO. Any one of those people (myself included) would be more than happy to have our story told in a stump speech about the failing HC system.

She didn't bother to run with anything vetted -- she chose to take tidbits of a story and make shit up to plump it in order to get the sympathy from the crowd rather than to discuss an actual incident. I am sure that Mike would have been happy to give her thousands to pick from...

The Clinton camp told papers it had tried to check out as much of Holman's story as was possible, but hadn't been able verify all the details.

What details did they verify? Well, there was a mother and baby, and it was in Ohio....

in the national consciousness. If we are to demean Murdoch's Fox News for their pro-Republican agenda, then so goes Murdoch's NY Post.

Per the post author's wishes, I didn't make it an OP with a reference link back -- but instead searched off and on this afternoon to see if any other source picked up the story.

Apparently the family gave the Post an exclusive.

Treat that as you will.

To me (Right, Left or neutral), they seem pissed and rightfully so.

rose colored glasses

..this wasn't evil---just sloppy.

Sloppy is not a good trait in a president and personally, I've hated the politics of personal anecdote since Ronald Reagan invented it.

If you think and act evil you are evil.

The Obama camp checks out every little minuthia...just like the republicans did to Gore. They are always on the go looking for some excuse to call Clinton a liar... even though she is a Fellow Democrat. They learned well to fight dirty and then they have the nerve to say Clinton is a dirty player after they wash their filthy lying hands.

Got any extra pop-corn? I already ate all mine.

:eyes:

Also, there's been several posts here calling Clinton a lier for telling that story...like she just made the whole thing up and it's just another sniper story/lie.

Frankly I don't care if it's true or not. That type of story goes on all over country. She was trying to make a point...and everyone disregarded that point and it was lost. Too bad...it was an important one the Obamites are biting themselves in the ass as now no one will dare ever call attention to that disgraceful fact ever again.

"Frankly I don't care if it's true or not."

And that is exactly the problem.

But her lying and shrill attacks on hope and Obama, calling me foolish for daring to think something better is possible, turned me right off. Demanding he reject AND disavow comments made by others...cheap BS tactics to try and score points through guilt by association.

Blame the supporters all you want, because it won't change the fact that Hillary is her own worst enemy. One needs no fine tooth comb to find the lies and BS in her stump speech. One needs only eyes and ears.

Is it evil, no. It is just typical old school, assume the electorate is stupid and won't bother to check the facts, DC style politics. Hillary treats me, the grassroots level activist, like I'm a lazy moron who will not bother to check to see if she did dodge sniper fire... or that I'm too stupid to know that having some tea and a photo op isn't playing a pivotal roll in a peace process.


The very fact she acts as if it is somehow an offense for anybody to expect her to EARN their support, has ensured she won't have mine.

Here's an idea, stop whining about how unfair it is to be called on your lies and distortions, and simply stop lying or distorting.

the GOP turns its full force on Obama in the fall.

That girl has enough dirt to make her own island.

There's no reason not to make sure that such stories used in campaign speeches have not been properly verified. By not verifying them, you risk bringing discredit upon your campaign. It's really as simple as that, and I don't see where the controversy is. :shrug:

I had a dude who told me about how the DEA was the biggest drug pusher in Houston. He swore it was true. If I were a candidate, however, I wouldn't repeat it.

Oh, and your set-up is wrong. The story's been verified now. However, the part about insurance, the whole point of Clinton's dramatic story?

Wrong, the woman had insurance.

The rank evil on her part is the repetition of known falsehoods, and fabrications, solely for her own self-promotion.

She dodges snipers. She changes the chronology of Sufferage. She heals Ireland. She intervenes in Ruwanda. She creates S-CHIP. She was behind FMLA.

The only problem is, since none of that is actually true, it's hard to give her any credibility on anything she says.

out of the mud, my children!

that vince foster was murdered in an apartment owned by hillary clinton.... so if i started telling that story during stump speeches, without bothering to find out if it was true or BS, would that be OK too?


What Hillary in repeating and embellishing this story wasn't evil.... it was just stupid and sadly, typical.

It brings a tear to my eye.

Next thing you know ole Shrillary will be beating up on those poor oil companies!

war games.

Under normal conversation, we do it all the time. But she's running for POTUS. It's got to do with credibility and being able to count on, believe, take as fact, what a person says. She will be dealing with heads of state all over the world, some friendly, some not. She can't just rattle off stories that have not been verified in the course of conversation. "Hey, Putin, I heard a story from the dude in China about the top dog in the Iran who said..." silly example maybe, but perhaps you get the idea. It's CREDIBILITY! CHARACTER!
She has an established pattern of telling things not exactly right!

I can see where this could easily happen and there would be no hospital record of the occurrence. I have seen people walk into clinics and Doctor's offices who were obviously in dire need of care who left because they could not afford to pay either a past due bill or a co-payment or a fee. In those cases, I can see there would have been no documentation of such. Also the story was given to Hillary by a deputy sheriff who was an Uncle of the girl who died.


I do not fault Hillary for using it in her speech - we all know of similar cases with possibly less of a dramatic outcome, but still similar. I personally have lost someone close to me because she had no health insurance. She was experiencing chest pains, mentioned it to a few friends but couldn't afford the fee for a Doctor visit. Only a couple weeks later, she had a massive heart attack and died. So, yes, while this story may not have been true, similar stories are indeed genuine.

An article from the Athens Messenger regarding this case:

http://athensmessenger.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=273&ArticleID=9511

___________________Article Below______________________________

Holman said when he spoke to Clinton, he never mentioned the name of the hospital that allegedly denied the woman care, nor did he mention the woman by name.

Holman, a friend of an uncle of the woman, said his understanding from talking to the family is that she initially went to a hospital other than O'Bleness, where she was asked to pay $100, possibly because she owed money.

"The family thinks that whatever hospital she (initially) went to, she had a bill and couldn't go there," Holman said. He said he believes the woman went to O'Bleness after she was turned away from that other hospital.

Holman said that other hospital could have been "anywhere in Ohio and West Virginia."

___________________end quote_________________________________


Incidentally, I support Barack Obama but I do not support attacks for petty items such as this one - the state of our health care crisis is critical especially in the rural areas such as Meigs County, Ohio. I will agree candidates should investigate such claims before using in speeches, but I don't agree on attacks against her for this story.

particularly in view of the questions she's been raising about her judgment.

:headbang:
rocknation

Who said anything about evil? It just isn't true.

If (and when) Shrub uses 2nd hand information to spread propaganda so he can further his political ambitions we all cry foul. The same standard applies Clinton, Obama, McCain... whoever.

She repeated bad second-hand info. It's not a lie. It's just a careless move.

Let's move on.

and the mother did have insurance.

it was a mistake. thats it. lets not beat the crap out of this one please.

She has used the very tragic story of a very real person as a highlight in her stump speech based on HERESAY. The story should have been fully vetted; family members should have been consulted, etc.

With all of Hillary's experience, she should have known better than to do something so foolish.

The names of the woman, her baby, the hospitals involved, and the dates and circumstances were all published in the death notices section of the local newspaper, the Daily Sentinel, last August. All the WaPo had to do was say 'Meigs county? Let's find out what the local paper is there and look in the public death notices for the period in question.' There's no underhandedness here - any journalist would have been curious about this tragic story, as well as knowing where to go looking for the details. People screaming about privacy seem to have forgotten that births, marriages and deaths are matters of public record.

All I have to say about Clinton in this whole thing was that it was rather careless of her to go repeating a second hand story on the campaign trail. It's like telling an urban legend on an internet forum - you get some reaction, but sooner or later someone comes along with a link to snopes and you feel sort of stupid.

And it emphasizes why Obama is winning the nomination. He has run a much more efficient campaign than she as and has been much quicker and effective in rebutting false scandals like this.

As for the hospital, if you were the Administrator wouldn't you do everything you could to call a story like into question? It's probably his job on the line (and rightly so).

In of itself, I don't think this means much it but it adds, IMHO, to the growing perception that Hillary is a spinner of tall tales, or worse, that she will say anything in an effort to win.

They have already had to deal with the grief of a daughter and grandchild dying. They want to be able to maintain a vision of their daughter that is as noble as possible, but this story, which makes her poor, uninsured, etc., contradicts the memory they want to maintain of her. So this is less, to me, about Hillary being evil than it does about a family who feels like its memories of a loved one have been intruded upon and misappropriated.