Far Right PAC Releases Deceptive Video to Make It Seem Like Bill Clinton Was Bashing Obama
Here’s the latest deceptive video being circulated by right wingers to smear Bill Clinton by taking a statement out of context. Notice: it’s a 24-second clip, posted to YouTube by the far right propaganda PAC calling itself “America Rising.”
Here’s the full statement with the sections cut out of this clip:
“I literally from the time I met her 45 years ago until we talked yesterday, she is the best change maker I have ever known. She always finds a way to make something good happen, to make people feel empowered, to buy people into the process, to make democracy work the way the framers intended for it to work. Now if you don’t believe we can all grow together again, if you don’t believe we’re ever going to grow again, if you believe it’s more important to re-litigate the past, there may be many reasons that you don’t want to support her.
“But if you believe we can all rise together, if you believe we’ve finally come to the point where we can put the awful legacy of the last eight years behind us and the seven years before that where we were practicing trickle-down economics with no regulation in Washington, which is what caused the crash, then you should vote for her. Because she’s the only person who basically has good ideas, will tell you how she’s going to pay for them, can be commander-in-chief, and is a proven change maker with Republicans and Democrats and Independents alike.”
And here’s Bill Clinton’s statement tonight about this fake controversy:
An aide to Bill Clinton says the legacy he was referring to was Republicans’ obstructionism.
“When Republicans controlled the White House, their trickle-down approach drove our economy to the brink of a collapse. After President Obama was elected, Republicans made it their number one goal to block him at every turn,” spokesman Angel Urena said in a statement. “That unprecedented obstruction these last eight years is their legacy, and the American people should reject it by electing Hillary Clinton to build on President Obama’s success so we can all grow and succeed together.”
This video clip is now posted all over the right wing universe, and it’s fraudulent; it’s an edited clip that distorts Bill Clinton’s words to make it seem like “the awful legacy of the last eight years” was referring to the Obama presidency. But it wasn’t. He was talking about the economic collapse and the subsequent Republican obstructionism during the Obama presidency. That’s what President Clinton meant by “awful legacy” — the legacy of Republican economic malfeasance and obstructionism.
Pro-tip: when you see a 24-second video clip from a right wing PAC, it’s almost certainly an out-of-context dishonest hit job.
This, folks, is what right wingers do; they lie and deliberately distort statements by taking them out of context.
But it’s really disappointing to see Bernie Sanders helping them do it.
Don’t know that I’d call President Obama’s 72 straight months of job growth an “awful legacy.” https://t.co/GUzlY6Wp4h
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) March 22, 2016
Sanders needs to do the right thing now, and apologize for helping spread this smear campaign that originated with a right wing propaganda organization.
