Clinton Spokesperson: Lying Okay when Making a Point

Hillary Clinton is a bit historically challenged – especially when it comes to her own history. She invents memorable events, seemingly out of thin air, when she feels the need to make a point. She did it during the democrat presidential primaries last year when she talked about avoiding sniper fire in Bosnia. She did it again in Belfast, Ireland last week.

The Times Online (UK) reports:

She was back in Belfast last week, giving a gentle push to politicians dragging their heels over a final piece in the peace process jigsaw.

But according to the Sunday Life newspaper, during a speech she made to the Stormont parliament she said that Belfast’s landmark Europa Hotel was devastated by an explosion when she first stayed there in 1995.

The Europa, where most journalists covering the decades-long conflict stayed, was famed as Europe’s most bombed hotel, earning the moniker “the Hardboard Hotel”.

However, the last Provisional IRA bomb to damage the Europa was detonated in 1993, two years before President Clinton and his wife checked in for the night.

The last time the Europa underwent renovations because of bomb blast damage was in January 1994, 22 months before the presidential entourage booked 110 rooms at the hotel.

Mrs Clinton told assembled politicians at Stormont: “When Bill and I first came to Belfast we stayed at the Europa Hotel … even though then there were sections boarded up because of damage from bombs.”

Maybe she envisioned boarded up sections in her mind. Only she knows for sure, but obviously this was another made up scenario by the Secretary of State. But here’s the kicker, when asked about this fib flub, her spokesperson replied:

A spokesman for Mrs Clinton said that she had simply been trying to express a sincere “perception” of a Belfast in darker days.

The spokesman told a Belfast newspaper: “We are not talking about the same thing [as ‘mis-speaking’ about Bosnia]. Secretary Clinton was simply contrasting.”

Isn’t there a way to “simply contrast” without making up personal stories? When she’s done with government, maybe Hillary can enjoy a career as a fiction writer.