Hillary Called Herself a "Moderate," But Blames Sanders for Questioning If She's "Progressive"?

Wow.  I cannot believe how Hillary Clinton so grossly misled the press about the recent campaign "issue" regarding whether she is a "progressive" or not. 


The controversy of whether the "progressive" label should be applied to Clinton reached a new, higher level several days ago when MSNBC reporter Kasie Hunt asked Sanders a
question shortly after he arrived in New Hampshire to campaign before the NH Primary.  Hunt asked Sanders if  he thought Clinton was a "progressive."  Sanders replied, "Some days, yeah...except when she announces that she's a proud moderate.  And then I guess she's not a progressive." 


At that moment, surrounded by media and people, Sanders didn't explain the source of his reference to Clinton saying she was a moderate. (He did this later) Last September, at an event in Columbus, Ohio, Clinton said the following:


"You know, I get accused of being kind of moderate and center," she told the audience at a "Women for Hillary" event.  "I plead guilty"


The remark was viewed then by some as a response to the campaign of Sanders, who was running as more left-leaning than Clinton.  A September 10, 2015 article for CNN said that Clinton "argued at the Columbus event that being in the "center" is a positive, not a negative."
So, a few months ago, Clinton  called herself a "moderate."
Yet, Clinton, in response to Sanders' comment, said she thought it was "a low blow."
Think about it:  Clinton was saying it was a "low blow" for Sanders to refer to how she had
defined herself before an audience in Ohio in September.
That is the clearest definition of deceit.  Clinton was trying, in the most extreme fashion, to badly mislead voters -- create the most false, out-of-context impression possible about the issue in front of her.  Hillary, for the next few days and during the Feb. 4th debate with Sanders, started a whole new, false narrative about what had happened.  She said Sanders was trying to be a "gatekeeper" for what defined a "progressive" and by Sanders' standards, virtually no leading Democrats - from President Obama to the late Paul Wellstone - would be defined as a "progressive."
She made it sound like Sanders himself had initiated the entire discussion of how she labled herself. Hillary is the one who doesn't seem to know what she wants to call herself.  Additionally, her record has often resembled that of a "moderate" more than a liberal or progressive. 
For Hillary, the truth often doesn't matter.  All she seems to care about is her self-interest, which, right now, is warding off Sanders' challenge and winning the White House.
What is truly pathetic is that only a couple of reporters even referred to Clinton's September remark about herself being "a moderate."   And, when Clinton said that Sanders had engaged in "cherry-picking" by citing her remark in September, I didn't hear anyone in the press question or criticize her false characterization. No, in fact, Clinton, in September, appeared to be trying to develop her strategy for competing with Sanders.  She decided, quickly, that she'd try, instead, to compete with Sanders by calling herself a "progressive."
Sanders should have done much more to identify this "deceit" by Clinton.  He should have objected to it and noted how foolish and phony it was for Hillary to complain about something she had brought on  herself.  Sanders' campaign has not been nearly aggressive enough about pointing out to reporters and voters when Clinton is lying or misleading.
Of course, it's not an easy task because Clinton and her campaign have made more and more false or sleazy statements every day. 

Hillary Clinton Lied About Bernie Sanders in Iowa - and Deserves More Criticism for It

Let the record show that Hillary Clinton told a lot of lies, half-truths and distortions about Bernie Sanders in her campaign to win the Iowa caucuses.  (If she wins, her lies might end up making the difference). 
Hillary, of course, was way ahead of Bernie for many months in Iowa, and, then, in January, Bernie gained momentum and eventually caught up to Hillary in the polls.
So, when Hillary suddenly found herself in a real fight, what did she do?
The answer:  She showed her old, true colors.  She began a full-fledged, sleazy, negative campaign against Sanders aimed to deliberately mislead voters and hurt his standing.
Hillary Clinton, in the first state to vote in 2016, was back to her old deceitful habits - which she displayed for much of her 2008 campaign against Barack Obama - and, which she engaged in for her eight years in the White House in the 1990s when she and her husband, then-President Bill Clinton, spent much of their time denying or trying to avoid charges and criticisms associated with various scandals.
Hillary's choice to attack Sanders, and, how she did so, was telling:
Several prominent examples:
*  Hillary kept attacking Sanders for his record on gun control.  She tried to portray him as an opponent of gun safety and a supporter of the NRA.  In essence, she painted him as such an extreme opponent of gun control, one might have thought he was a Republican who had opposed any and all proposed controls on guns control forever.  In fact, while Sanders has had several votes - some many years ago - when he opposed gun control measures, he's had other votes or positions that indicated his support for gun control.  As Sanders said, the NRA has given him a D- rating. 
* Hillary kept saying - falsely - that Sanders wanted to "tear apart" Obamacare.  She tried to characterize his support to move to a single-payer system as a desire to "start all over" in terms of developing a new health care system.  This sweeping, completely inaccurate, baseless fictitious statement was particularly outrageous given that Clinton knew she was alleging large, disturbing things about Sanders that were ridiculously false.
*  Hillary made a very big deal out of a Sanders' remark after Planned Parenthood decided to endorse Hillary.  Sanders, who was disappointed by the endorsement, remarked that Planned Parenthood was "a part of the Establishment."  It was an un-thoughtful quote that didn't seem to represent a rejection of Planned Parenthood, but, rather, some sentiment Sanders had about the endorsement process.
Clinton pounced on it and kept ripping Sanders for his attacking Planned Parenthood.  She painted Sanders as being unsupportive or unfriendly to Planned Parenthood. Sanders has been a longtime supporter of Planned Parenthood.  He later backtracked on his remark and said he knew the "Clinton people will try to spin these things."
*  Sanders said he supported the ongoing talks led by Secretary of State John Kerry to attempt to bring a group of countries together to discuss ideas for resolving the crises impacting Syria.  He said, on at least one occasion, that he thought Iran might be one of the countries included in those talks.
Clinton attacked Sanders for advocating for the inclusion of Iran and went on to discuss how reckless and dangerous a country Iran was.  She seemed to grossly distort Sanders' remarks about Iran and suggesting he was being too positive toward Iran, when, he didn't indicate his overall view of Iran.

I could go on.  Anyone watching the campaign closely noticed that Clinton repeatedly spewed out falsehoods and distortions about Sanders.

What's so disturbing about Hillary's deceit is that the print and television media appeared to do very, very little reporting that illustrated her lies and mis-statements.  So, she used her sleazy approach to win votes and got away with most of it.

What's also upsetting is that Hillary has had a reputation for dishonesty from the beginning of the 2016 campaign until now.  More than half of the American people believe she is dishonest, according to polls.   Yet, despite the media's awareness of Clinton's "problem" with her trustworthiness, most members of the media seemed to disregard or ignore Hillary's dishonesty in her Iowa campaign.

It makes one lose a bit of hope about our political process.  Hillary Clinton, known for her failures in honesty - in 2008 and in the White House - chose to lie again in her first state of the 2016 presidential campaign.  Win or lose in the future, Hillary Clinton lost something important in Iowa, and, that is a chance to be more honest and build the public's trust in her as a candidate.