Dick Morris again falsely claimed Clinton said Chelsea "was jogging around the World Trade Center on 9/11"
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist and Fox News contributor Dick Morris and his wife, Eileen McGann, falsely asserted in a column that Sen. Hillary Clinton "said that Chelsea [Clinton] was jogging around the World Trade Center on 9/11 and happened to duck into a coffee shop when the airplanes hit. She said that this move saved Chelsea's life." In fact, Hillary Clinton made no such claim.
In a March 25 column published on Newsmax.com and FrontPageMag.com, syndicated columnist and Fox News contributor Dick Morris and his wife, Eileen McGann, wrote of Sen. Hillary Clinton: "Interviewed on the 'Today' show one week after 9/11, she spun an elaborate yarn. The kindest thing we could say was that it was a fantasy. Or a fabrication." Morris and McGann then falsely asserted that Hillary Clinton "said that Chelsea [Clinton] was jogging around the World Trade Center on 9/11 and happened to duck into a coffee shop when the airplanes hit. She said that this move saved Chelsea's life." In fact, on the September 18, 2001, edition of NBC's Today, Clinton said that her daughter had "gone, what she thought would be just a great jog. She was going to go down to Battery Park, she was going to go around the towers. She went to get a cup of coffee and -- and that's when the plane hit."
From the September 18, 2001, edition of Today (according to the LexisNexis transcript):
KATIE COURIC (co-host): Since being elected to office, New York's junior senator, Hillary Rodham Clinton, managed to keep a relatively low profile until terror struck in lower Manhattan. At that moment, she was not just a senator, but a concerned parent. She recently sat down with "Dateline NBC's" Jane Pauley to talk about that morning.
PAULEY: Tuesday morning, Senator Hillary Clinton's first thought when the second plane hit was terrorists. Her next thought was Chelsea, who was not only in New York, but staying downtown.
CLINTON: She'd gone, what she thought would be just a great jog. She was going to go down to Battery Park, she was going to go around the towers. She went to get a cup of coffee and -- and that's when the plane hit.
PAULEY: She was close enough to hear the rumble.
CLINTON: She did hear it.
PAULEY: And to see the smoke in person, not on television.
CLINTON: No. Of course, Bill was in Australia. And, you know, he was so upset by what he was seeing on television that I didn't want to tell him that I couldn't find her until I found her. I told him that, you know, everything's fine, don't worry. But I couldn't do it with the level of assurance that I needed until I could find her a couple of hours later.
A November 9, 2001, UPI article about a piece Chelsea Clinton wrote in Talk magazine corroborates Hillary Clinton's claim that Chelsea did, in fact, leave her apartment to have coffee the morning of the September 11, 2001, attacks:
"When the World Trade Center collapsed on Sept. 11, I was 12 blocks away, (and) nothing has been the same since," Clinton wrote in the December/January issue of Talk magazine, on sale Friday in New York.
[...]
Clinton had been staying with her high school friend Nicole Davison in her apartment near Union Square for a few days in September before she went to England to study at Oxford. After they had coffee together, Davison went to work and Clinton returned to the apartment.
Davison called Clinton with the news of the first plane that crashed into the World Trade Center. Clinton turned on the television and watched the second plane crash into the second WTC tower, and tried to reach her mother in Washington, but after speaking to her assistant, the phone line went dead.
[...]
Panicked, Chelsea Clinton left the apartment and found herself running toward downtown "in the direction everyone else was coming from," in search of a public telephone. She was desperate to call her mother and her father, who was on a speaking tour in Australia.
Chelsea Clinton was downtown in line at a pay phone when she heard the rumble of the second tower collapsing. Later she found Davison and another friend, and the three spent the day walking uptown. Chelsea Clinton wrote that she had an "irrational medley of thoughts" running through her head.
As Media Matters for America has documented, Morris made similar false claims about Hillary Clinton's account of her daughter's whereabouts on the morning of September 11, 2001, on the March 24 edition of Hannity & Colmes and on the May 4, 2004, edition of Hannity & Colmes.
Later in the column, Morris and McGann wrote: "So why did Hillary make up the story about Chelsea? Most likely to was because her co-senator (and implicit rival for the voter's affection), a real New Yorker Chuck Schumer [D] spoke of his daughter, who attended Stuyvesant High School (Dick's alma mater) located next to the TRade [sic] Center, being at real risk on 9/11. Hillary needed to make herself part of the scene." They further wrote: "Her fabrication on the 'Today' show was no unique foray. It is her standard M.O.. [sic] It gives us pause in evaluating all of her stories and calls into question her entire credibility."
From the March 25 article by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann:
After 9/11, Hillary had a problem. New Yorkers were desperately focused on their own needs for protection and they were saddled with a Senator who was not one of them -- an Arkansasn [sic] or was it a Chicagoan?
Interviewed on the "Today" show one week after 9/11, she spun an elaborate yarn. The kindest thing we could say was that it was a fantasy. Or a fabrication.
She said that Chelsea was jogging around the World Trade Center on 9/11 and happened to duck into a coffee shop when the airplanes hit. She said that this move saved Chelsea's life. But Chelsea told Talk magazine that she was in a friend's apartment four miles from ground zero when the first plane hit. Her friend called her, waking her up, and told her to turn on the TV. On television, she saw the second plane hit, disproving Hillary's claim that "she heard the plane hit. She heard it. She did."
So why did Hillary make up the story about Chelsea? Most likely to was because her co-senator (and implicit rival for the voter's affection), a real New Yorker Chuck Schumer spoke of his daughter, who attended Stuyvesant High School (Dick's alma mater) located next to the TRade Center, being at real risk on 9/11. Hillary needed to make herself part of the scene.
She invented the entire story on national television, the "Today" show, and didn't blink an eye.
Her fabrication on the "Today" show was no unique foray. It is her standard M.O.. It gives us pause in evaluating all of her stories and calls into question her entire credibility.
Is there any kind of defined limit, to the sick and manipulative invocation of the attacks of September 11 2001?
I hear of those attacks being invoked by Mrs. Clinton so seldom, as to say never...
But from my peeking in to MMFA's insights, it seems this azzwipe morris invokes 9/11, as much as that azzwipe guliianni did.
Clinton said that her daughter had "gone, what she thought would be just a great jog. She was going to go down to Battery Park, she was going to go around the towers."
And Dick Morris was wrong how?
You don't have the story straight.
She did go on a jog, and during that jog, she did reportedly go 'around' the WTC buildings.
When Hillary was being interviewed, she combined several different moments in Chelsea's morning together in a confusing way to uninformed listeners.
Dick Morris is a lying scumbag, because he takes her somewhat confusing interview to claim that she's lying.
i'm aware hillary's account does not match chelsea's in all the details. there are a couple elements that got confused, so it's hard to follow. but i did not think she even got down to the towers. my point was the story morris told was not even remotely related to anything hillary said. here's someone else repeating the lie.
http://wonkette.com/372630/hillary-makes-up-chelseas-whereabouts-on-911
What with all the confusion that morning, I think that it's understandable that Hillary may have gottena few facts wrong early on when describing her daughter's whereabouts on 9/11. I know that i was living in Colorado then, and my two adult children live in NJ. I knew they went into Manhattan quite regularly, and when i could not get hold of either one of them that morning, I panicked.
Fortunately, they were both fine. They were nowhere NEAR Manhattan that day, but since most of the cell phone providers in the area had switching equipment in the Twin Towers, I could not talk to either of them for two or three days after the attack.
I don't understand why anyone even listens to a pathological liar like Dick Morris.
I believe the evidence available does substantiate that she went for a jog early in the morning. She ran down one side of the island of Manhattan, circled around near Battery Park on the southern end of the island, then ran north back to her friend's apartment.
So, she ran 'around' the WTC towers.
And she didn't hear the second plane. She got a phone call from her friend after the first plane hit, and saw the second plane hit. She heard the second tower collapse while she was on the street waiting in line at a pay phone after she'd seen others heading north covered in dust from the first tower collapse.
Hillary combined the events into a confusing synopsis.
that is the way morris said hillary portrayed it, to be clear.
Morris: She (Hillary Clinton) said that Chelsea was jogging around the World Trade Center on 9/11 and happened to duck into a coffee shop when the airplanes hit. She said that this move saved Chelsea's life.
Hillary Clinton and Jane Pauley:
Clinton: She'd gone, what she thought would be just a great jog. She was going to go down to Battery Park, she was going to go around the towers. She went to get a cup of coffee and -- and that's when the plane hit.
Pauley: She was close enough to hear the rumble.
Clinton: She did hear it.
Pauley: And to see the smoke in person, not on television.
Clinton: No. (That is no, not on television, yes in person.)
Chelsea Clinton: "When the World Trade Center collapsed on Sept. 11, I was 12 blocks away, (and) nothing has been the same since," Clinton wrote in the December/January issue of Talk magazine, on sale Friday in New York..."
Neither Chelsea nor Hillary Clinton EVER said Chelsea Clinton was jogging around the World Trade Center.
Now, YOU tell ME where MORRIS was RIGHT!
I don't understand why the word parsing.
Hillary said a week later, (I'm paraphrasing,) that Chelsea went out for a jog and ducked into a coffee shop, hearing the plane hit. None of that is true according to Chelsea's account.
Why anyone would defend Hillary when it is proven right here that Hillary embellished the facts is beyond me.
Hillary said a week later, (I'm paraphrasing,) that Chelsea went out for a jog and ducked into a coffee shop, hearing the plane hit. None of that is true according to Chelsea's account.
Why anyone would defend Hillary when it is proven right here that Hillary embellished the facts is beyond me. Another American
Hillary said several things, all of which make sense, and all of which totally disprove what Dick Morris said.
When Hillary said that her daughter 'heard it' she was referring to the sound of one of the towers falling down.
In Dick Morris' column, he said that it was
Hillary’s claim that “she [Chelsea] heard the plane hit. She heard it. She did.”
But it was never Hillary's claim that Chelsea heard the second plane hit. She said that Chelsea heard one of the towers falling. Chelsea and Hillary both said that what Chelsea heard was the sound of the second tower collapsing. Dick Morris said this same lie back in 2004. He used almost the same exact words even!
http://www.wnyc.org/blog/lehrer/archives/000064.html
Here's what Chelsea said.
I remember very little about how I got so far downtown…I do remember standing in line at a phone somewhere and hearing a deafening rumble.
Here's what we know happened. Chelsea went for an early morning jog. Then she and her friend went out for coffee. Her friend went to work and Chelsea returned to her friend's apt, and then her friend called Chelsea to tell her about the first plane hitting the WTC. Chelsea turned the TV on in time to see the second plane hit. She had trouble reaching her parents, and feeling at a loss, she wandered around the streets, looking for a pay phone that might work better than a cell phone. She saw people covered in dust from the first tower collapse and while waiting to use a pay phone heard the second tower collapse from about 12 blocks away.
Dick Morris lied.
Bottle,
I don't understand why you would spend so much time defending Hillary when her quote with Pauley is right there for all to see. Me thinks thou protests too much. :-) It is obvious Hillary is embellishing the story with falsehoods to make it sound like Chelsea was almost on top of ground zero. You can take issue with Morris's interpretation, but it is irrefutable that:
Chelsea did not go out for a great jog around the towers as Hillary claimed in that interview.
Chelsea had not ducked into a coffee shop when she heard the noise as Hillary claimed.
The noise Chelsea heard was not the plane as Hillary claimed.
It's that simple.
CLINTON: She'd gone, what she thought would be just a great jog. She was going to go down to Battery Park, she was going to go around the towers. She went to get a cup of coffee and -- and that's when the plane hit.
PAULEY: She was close enough to hear the rumble.
CLINTON: She did hear it.
Chelsea did not go out for a great jog around the towers as Hillary claimed in that interview.
Yes she did. She went for a jog, then had coffee with her friend, and then went back to her friend's apt while her friend went to work.
Chelsea had not ducked into a coffee shop when she heard the noise as Hillary claimed.
Hillary didn't claim that Chelsea ducked into a coffee shop when she heard the noise. That's one of Dick Morris' lies.
The noise Chelsea heard was not the plane as Hillary claimed.
Hillary didn't claim that the noise that Chelsea heard was the plane. She claimed that the noise that Chelsea heard was the roar of the second tower coming down. Hillary said that Chelsea heard a "rumble". The rumble was the building coming down, not a plane hitting the building.
It's that simple.
Yes, it is that simple. Dick Morris lied, and has lied repeatedly about this same issue.
CLINTON: She'd gone, what she thought would be just a great jog. She was going to go down to Battery Park, she was going to go around the towers. She went to get a cup of coffee and -- and that's when the plane hit.
PAULEY: She was close enough to hear the rumble.
CLINTON: She did hear it.
Argh.
"Hillary said a week later, (I'm paraphrasing,) that Chelsea went out for a jog and ducked into a coffee shop, hearing the plane hit."
If you didn't "paraphrase", you'd see that it's not what she said. She said that she was GOING TO GO for a jog. She said she went for a cup of coffee.
She didn't say what you're "paraphrasing" she said. She didn't say Chelsea "ducked" into a coffee shop. She didn't say Chelsea was out for a jog.
If you stop "paraphrasing", you'll understand better, maybe.
Lets be clear:
CLINTON: She'd gone, what she thought would be just a great jog. She was going to go down to Battery Park, she was going to go around the towers. She went to get a cup of coffee and -- and that's when the plane hit.PAULEY: She was close enough to hear the rumble.
CLINTON: She did hear it.
-------
Anyone watching the show would interpret "She'd gone, what she thought would be a great jog." as going for a jog. You're claim, "She said that she was GOING TO GO for a jog." is obviously incorrect. I've pasted the exact quote above.
My paraphrasing was only to inform you that I was not originally trying to be exact in my reference. I thought it unnecessary as I was conveying the general meaning of Hillary's quote. I guess I was wrong. Rather than accept that fact that Hillary was embellishing, you, like the others, are proving my original point that many of you seem to be intent on parsing in order to try and defend the indefensible. Hillary gave a false account of what happened Chelsea on 9/11 in that interview. Simply repeating MMFA's claim does not prove their point any better than they did.
Unlike you, Dick I-don't-have-to-pay-my-taxes Morris has forged a career out of bashing the Clintons, which entitles him to camera time and column space with the right-wing slime machine.
Why don't you let him know he's going about it all wrong? In lieu of blatantly lying, he can give your brilliant assessment a try.
Maybe you can remind him to use quotes next time instead of the paraphrasing I spoke about at the beginning of the thread, which, not surprisingly, you provided your own disastrous example of. At least there's one talent you two share.
OK, I'm waiting.
King, you just haven't had enough "seeds planted" yet.Or maybe you're not using enough fertilizer.I know of somebody who has a surplus, and is giving it away.
(smiley face and ham-fisted non-sequitir joke here)
You forgot the next sentence: "She was going to go down to Battery Park, she was going to go around the towers.".
That implies to me that she did not go jogging around the towers. I don't know how you can interpret it any other way.
Was it correct? I have no idea, Clinton had second hand information. Frankly, I don't really care whether Chelsea was jogging there or not, but Clinton clearly didn't say that she was. And she clearly didn't say she was "ducking" into a coffee shop, like you claim she said.
Another American: "I don't understand."
Me, "paraphrasing" Another American: Another American said I DO understand.
Another American: That's not what I said. I said I DON'T understand.
Me: Why are you parsing words?
So, Another American, even YOU can see how two letters and one punctuation mark clearly change the meaning. Of course, Morris knows that when he lies about what Clinton said, but like so many in the media, he persists in his lies. Not paraphrases, LIES.
Josef Goebbels, call your service...
Tell the Big Lie often enough, people will believe it in the face of all contrary evidence.
Liie Hill & Bill had Vince Foster murdered. Like Obama has policy meeting with Jeremiah Wright. That Goerge W. Bush never lies. And oh yeah, he was just kidding when he said he wanted to be a dictator...
It's often speculated that what's behind Morris's ongoing character assassination of the Clintons is a personal falling out. I would buy that for one or two nationally broadcast hit pieces right after he left them, but hundreds over many years? I submit he is either being blackmailed by someone on the right and/or there is an active Swiss bank account in his and someone else’s name who doesn't like the Clintons.
Eddy, my take on Morris is a little different.From the first time i saw him on Fox, I didn't think his anger and obsession fit in at all with the normal business or personal model. This is clearly unrequited love.
Listen to Morris talk about Bill Clinton. It's always about "broken promises", "gaining trust" and "leading on". Hillary is "calculating" and "meddling". I think it's pretty obvious that Dick is madly in love with Bill, and he sees HRC as the obstacle to his fantasy.
While disgruntled employees and betrayed friens can carry a pretty good grudge, Dick Morris is way off on another level, the "woman scorned" or rejected prom date territory.