While repeating Chelsea/9-11 falsehood, Tammy Bruce purported to diagnose Hillary Clinton with a mental disorder
SUMMARY: On Fox News' America's Election HQ, radio host Tammy Bruce suggested that Sen. Hillary Clinton suffers from "mythomania ... part of a larger psychiatric scheme of people who make up fantastic stories to bolster their own image." As purported evidence, Bruce asserted that Clinton had said her daughter, Chelsea Clinton, was "at the World Trade Center on September 11th." In fact, Hillary Clinton made no such claim.
During the April 7 edition of Fox News' America's Election HQ, radio host Tammy Bruce joined the growing list of media figures who have purported to diagnose Sen. Hillary Clinton with a mental disorder, asserting of Clinton, "Well, there's an actual psychiatric term called mythomania, and it's part of a larger psychiatric scheme of people who make up fantastic stories to bolster their own image." As supposed evidence of Clinton "literally making up things out of whole cloth," Bruce claimed that Clinton had discussed "Chelsea being at the World Trade Center on September 11th." In fact, Hillary Clinton did not claim that her daughter, Chelsea Clinton, was "at the World Trade Center on September 11th"; rather, as Media Matters for America has documented, Hillary 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."
As Media Matters noted, in a February 25 National Review Online blog post, CNBC host Lawrence Kudlow wrote, "Now I'm no psychiatrist, far from it, but I think a simple answer is that Senator Clinton could be depressed." In a February 27 New York Times column, Maureen Dowd wrote that Clinton "has turned into Sybil," an apparent reference to a book and movie about a woman who developed multiple personality disorder after being severely abused as a child. On the February 26 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, commentator Jack Cafferty claimed Clinton "[r]esembl[ed] someone with multiple personality disorder." And on the February 25 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, Chicago Tribune reporter Jill Zuckman asserted that Clinton's behavior "comes across as a little schizophrenic." As Media Matters further documented, in her book The Extreme Makeover of Hillary (Rodham) Clinton (Regnery Publishing, 2007), Republican strategist Bay Buchanan suggested that Clinton may have a disorder "involving narcissistic personality style," and was quoted in an article about the book as saying, "[W]e are talking about a clinical condition that could make her [Clinton] dangerously ill-suited to become President and Commander in Chief."
Additionally, as Media Matters documented in 2004, following a speech in which former Vice President Al Gore called for the resignation of six top Bush administration officials, pundits claimed that Gore "has gone off his lithium again"; that "half the country thinks he's a mental patient"; that he "is insane" and "needs medication"; and that "if he is already on medication, his doctors need to adjust it or change it entirely."
From the April 7 edition of Fox News' America's Election HQ:
MEGYN KELLY (anchor): What do you think, Tammy? Are your listeners still fired up about sniper-gate, as we've come to refer to it here on this program? I mean, do they still think that's something worth --
BRUCE: Well --
KELLY -- considering?
BRUCE: Yes. Well, there's an actual psychiatric term called mythomania, and it's part of a larger psychiatric scheme of people who make up fantastic stories to bolster their own image. When you look at Chelsea being at the World Trade Center on September 11th, or her being named after Edmund Hillary, or now the Bosnia situation, you see a pattern of this woman literally making up things out of whole cloth.
But when you look at polls about trusting politicians, you got to keep in mind -- people are considering, it's about politicians. It's not like whether or not you trust a member of your family. It's a different kind of standard.
And in this instance, it's a matter of whether or not you're dealing with a decent person who you can trust in a larger context.
SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!
Once again, an MMFA article that is sympathetic to Hillary Clinton is being used by commenters as an excuse to bash and ridicule her.
About 99% of the following comments here are derogatory to Hillary-- though the article itself is not (Obama supporters must get infuriated at this, obviously...)
So Hillary Clinton fans-- and those who are sensitive to concepts like fair play and the truth-- have been warned.
Proceed at your own risk!!
About 99% of the following comments here are derogatory to Hillary-- though the article itself is not - CarlileB
As of right now there are 76 comments. Of those, I see only 9 that are critical of Clinton. Over half of those are from Wesley & NAC, whom we would expect to be anti-Clinton, as well as anti-Obama. There were a few from Tommy and Jeter that were actually rather mild in nature.
I don't see where you're getting this bizarre impression of Obama fans infuriated at the article's non-anti-Clinton tone. There are comments defending Clinton from some I know to be Obama supporters.
You really need to get a grip on reality. This baseless persecution complex is coloring your world irrational.
"Well, there's an actual psychiatric term called mythomania, and it's part of a larger psychiatric scheme of people who make up fantastic stories to bolster their own image."
Gee - I may be being synical here - but isn't this what we know today as a "politician"?
I think you're right.
In fact, I just looked it up in my Oxford Dictionary and it said "see Bush, George W. and O'Reilly, Bill"
Tammy Bruce's dimestore psychoanalysis aside, I am surprised at Hillary's attention to detail on these past events that only could come back to haunt her.......I mean, she is showing she doesn't yet have the political skills of her husband, or others before her - you learn early on that you are always light and breezy on specifics about these things.
Sort of the political equivalent of intentionally brushing your hand over your mouth when speaking to avoid pesky, easily verified details.
-- She went to get a cup of coffee and -- and that's when the plane hit. -- Hillary Clinton
-- After they had coffee together, Davison went to work and Clinton returned to the apartment...Clinton turned on the television and watched the second plane crash into the second WTC tower -- mmfa
-- Davison called Clinton with the news of the first plane that crashed into the World Trade Center -- mmfa
I guess just more evidence of Hillary's "to err is human" attempt at remaking her image.
said that chelsea
Well Bruce is dead wrong about the Chelsea/twin towers Hillary quote, but the Edmund Hillary & the Bosnia snipergate thing are examples of Clinton's fabrications.
Don't know that I'd diagnose her as suffering from mythomania. Maybe just politicalmania. It's pretty common among those running for office. Symptoms include: exaggerations, flip-flopping, & convenient loss of memory.
Don't know that I'd diagnose her as suffering from mythomania. Maybe just politicalmania. It's pretty common among those running for office. Symptoms include: exaggerations, flip-flopping, & convenient loss of memory.
You sound like Howard Dean, Jeters. To borrow his phrase, HC's a "blatant opportunist"
WESLEY:
Hillary's "image" is just fine. MUCH better than, say, McCain's or YOURS (when it comes to having credibility on any issue).
The Rightwing's desperate need to define Hillary as being mentally ill has them digging for non-issues and making up lies of their own, but this "disease" is one which must genetically affect ALL Democrats, since it's a favorite tactic used against every single Democrat running for office. Democrats, unlike other human beings, are serial exaggerators, flip-floppers, liars and power hungry/do ANYTHING people. These charges share a singular quality: The charge can be made of ANYONE, with little or no evidence.
Apparently, this "flawed individual" nonsense works with rightwing Media's core audience, because it's a rerun which is revisited with every election, and with great fanfare.
Anyhow, the rightwing's seething hatred for all things Democratic will not win the day this election. Republican's PERFORMANCE has finally had gross negative effect on a vast majority of Americans (excepting corporate CEO's, Military/Industrial guys, and Talk show hosts). Americans do not want, trust, or agree with Republican "ideas", policies, or behavior. Snarky piddling attacks on "truthfulness" will not win the day, not this time.
And Tex, your image as the serial blamer remains intact. It didn't take you long to first blame the RIGHTWING for the Democrat's ills, but then proceed nicely to include the media, naturally the RIGHTWING media, as both conspire to ruin Democrats and paint them as all you've described.
I am amazed at how valiant your Democrats are, considering the good fight against the world's evils that they face everyday, the onslaught of unfairnesses they must endure even before they've had their morning coffee.
But you're always there, lookin' out for them and pointing that unending finger of victimology some other way.
Bravo!
It didn't take you long to first blame the RIGHTWING for the Democrat's ills
And it took you even less time to create a strawman out of what Tex actually said, but that is nothing new because you often pretend not to (or actually can't) comprehend what Tex said.
He said the right wing accuses all Democrats of the same actions, and they are usually the actions the right wing themselves are doing day in and day out. It's called "inoculation," and it has worked pretty well in the past, but a new resistant strain of voter is starting to see through the distortions and perceive what the GOP is actually doing, not what they falsely claim to be doing.
Thank you for putting your own spin on my summary of exactly what Tex was saying. He is the classic victim here and always has been. It's never the Democrats fault for whatever befalls them, it's always either, A) The RIGHTWING, or B) The RIGHTWING media........please, his posts are just recycling and repackaging his same talking points with the same theme.
I stand by my opinions.
TOMMY:
Thanks for the kind words. I must say, the rightwing attacks are a little easier to take when a Majority GOP Congress is not spending MILLIONS of taxpayer dollars investigating all the things they hope will develop into scandals.
The Rightwing Media chugs along as best it can, as you note, excoriating and smearing Democrats nonstop, but at least THEY don't get to waste taxpayer dollars doing it. Truth is, they have no use for investigations ... an investigation would at least IMPLY that they might be interested in facts or fairness. Such "due diligence" has been dispensed with, replaced by the "echo chamber" of repeating falsehoods from Drudge to Hannity to O'Reilly to Hume to Matthews to Russert. It doesn't HAVE to be TRUE, just REPEATED, to "work."
-- The Rightwing's desperate need to define Hillary...nonsense works with rightwing Media's core audience...the rightwing's seething hatred for all things Democratic... -- tex
This from the leftwing author at Huffpo about Hillary's campaign and ever changing positions...
-- she failed to reconcile her fanciful plans with the facts on the ground... They come up with absurd scenarios...It ranges from the idea of delegates not following the will of primary and caucus goers...to counting only states where Sen. Clinton won to counting only primary states...Yet Sen. Clinton did not express in any way her grave concerns over this nomination process when her husband won it in 1992 and 1996.
When President Clinton won the Iowa caucus in 1996 we heard none of this discussion about how caucuses were not representative of the people's will. Yet by her current standards (and they change from day to day depending on who is asking) President Clinton's nomination was not legitimate. Heck, as late as a few months ago Sen. Clinton was more than willing to praise the entire process and abide by the DNC's rulings against Florida and Michigan for their violation of party rules. -- Oliver Willis
It's not just the right wing that recognizes Hillary's naked attempt to win at any cost...even to the destruction of her party...with willful lies to obtain power.
"It's not just the right wing that recognizes Hillary's naked attempt to win at any cost...even to the destruction of her party...with willful lies to obtain power. "
Do you realize that not only is this insanity, but it is a profanation of history as well? You have no concept or knowledge of what these claims are really all about, historically.
You are trivializing the true offenders in this area, and that's the most offensive thing about this phony demonization of Clinton.
It's SIR Edmund Hillary you tool.
Tom,
I think you are making a mountain out of a molehill. ;-)
Really. Who cares if he was knighted or not.
DB,
It looks to me like Tomjoad was simply trying to lord it over Jeter.
bazzinnng...lord...or was that not intentional? (I can never tell without some obvious marker)
btw, my winky face means I was being snarky.
Touche'.
Is it o.k though to say Elton John is a good musician or should we say Sir Elton John is a good musician?
I'm not sure about the "28%" who think that Bush "did a great job", but I know I'm not with the group of tin foil hat wearing "truthers" who parrot the "Bush Lied - People Died" bumper sticker nonsense either.
Go Obama!!
Actually, it's happened whenever he has really screwed something up. everytime.
As an Obama supporter, you should be able to realize that that's exactly what Bush II did. First off, he has stated on numerous occasions that he feels God chose him to be President, and in fact, if God is Tim Lahaye, he did choose him to be President.
Second, have you noticed that there haven't been any terror alerts lately? For some reason, they seem to only occur around election time. I wonder why that is...
And lastly, Bush recently came out saying that withdrawing from the war will be bad for "the economy." He was a Texas oil man (from Massachusetts) so you do the math.
I find this incredibly condescending. First of all, I have yet to hear President Numbnuts or Dickless Cheney admit that it was a mistake. Second, are these the same Conservatives who, just ten years ago, were wringing their hands and hyperventilating over what would become of our Republic if we didn't hold Bill Clinton accountable for lying about a hummer? And now we're just supposed to "move along" and forget about how we got into this war?
Are you f***ing kidding me?
They are not there.
They're sitting comfortably in mom's basement or on their bosses computers. Others are fighting and dying for what they believe to be our nations duty.
But never their duty.
Not to mention the inherent stupidity of the proposition that THEY who were wrong THEN are NOW going to condescendingly give advice to US who were right all along. I mean they suddenly find its the mistake we always said it was as all the problems we WARNED them about happened as they acted suprised each time and NOW they want to EXPLAIN things to us. The hubris of that is astounding
Its amazing, Nerzog. I've heard this from members of my own family. They admit that it was a mistake to invade Iraq, but if we pull out now "it will turn into a bloodbath."
As if its not one now.
This was the same bullsh*t argument that the Nixon Administration made against getting out of Viet Nam, and so we continued with that carnage, and death, and the draining of billions of dollars from our economy, and the loss of another 20,000 American troops, and over a million Asian lives... all in order to avoid a "bloodbath." And, in the end, prolonging our involvement in that war merely prolonged the bloodletting. It didn't alter one iota the inevitable consequences of that misguided military intervention into some else's civil war. All it did was allow some political hacks to temporarily save face.
As a nation, we've sometimes shown ourselves to be pretty breathtakingly stupid, failing to learn from our past mistakes. We're too tied up with out consumer toys, I suppose, and the worship of vacuous, plastic celebrities, and DAMN IT... all that thinking is just sort of a boring drag, y' know, so just pour me another cold one and hand me the damned remote. Instead, we'll settle for the partisan screechmonkies and the dozen or so ubiquitous and completely interchangeable media talking heads obsessing and fretting about the supposed 'exaggerations' of Hillary (or whichever other Democrat that they've gotten around to) while shrugging off the SUBSTANTIAL and MURDEROUS LIES of the BUSH MALADMINISTRATION.
And we wonder how we ever came to be saddled with Dubya' and Cheney, and Rice, ad naseum.
If you want to convict Bush of being a Bible believing Christian who favors the good old fashioned American free market system, then all I can say is that Bush is guilty as charged.
But let's think about the future - Go Obama!
notanotherconservative wrote:
>>If you want to convict Bush of being a Bible believing Christian who favors the good old fashioned American free market system, then all I can say is that Bush is guilty as charged.
Really? What part of the bible said that George W. Bush was chosen by God? Can you cite a book, chapter, and verse? And what part of the capitalist idealogy states that it is okay to start a war for gain?
JUSTANOTHERCONSERVATIVE:
You're obviously very fond of GW Bush. And you expect us to believe that you now support Obama.
If you don't wish to be known as a "concern troll", how about telling us your analysis of how Obama's stances on issues reflect your beliefs, and how this agreement leaves you liking Bush as well? I can't see how you can keep all those contradictions in the air, juggle though you might.
"If you want to convict Bush of being a Bible believing Christian who favors the good old fashioned American free market system, then all I can say is that Bush is guilty as charged."---Notanotherconservative
The Bible has two parts. The first is full of bad stuff which gives context to the second which was a revolt against all that. Judaism informed Christianity, but Christianity is not half Judaism. The second part takes precedence over the first. Bush and a lot of miseducated and /or evil so-called Christians take too literally the idea of being "Judeo-Christian".
“...the good old fashioned American free market system …” is NEW as far as weakening tariff barriers to goods produced with super cheap labor and/or subsidized by foreign governments.
Actually, Justanotherconservative, I DON'T want to convict Bush of being a Bible believing Christian who favors the good old fashioned American free market system.
I would much rather see him convicted of being a war criminal, a thief, and of subverting the Constitution of the United States.
His re-election bid went downhill because of the Iranian hostage crisis. And what amazing timing that Reagan was able to announce that they were freed just after he was sworn into office.
Anyone who remembers eight years ago will remember the game the press and the GOP tried to play -- and got away with -- with Al Gore. They went, basically, for the "he's an uncontrollable liar, he's crazy, and he'll say anything to win." What, like saying that you could have huge tax cuts and still honor the Social Security funds? Bush said that, and that really was a lie. Like Bush saying that the tax cuts wouldn't be for the rich? Now, that's a lie.
On the other hand, this "Hillary lies" meme is rather easy to construct. Look at a paragraph of what she says, or better, a day's worth of speeches and question and answer sessions. Focus on one fact or another. Interpret it in isolation, TELL PEOPLE WHAT SHE SAID, play the altered or compressed clip, and the TELL THEM WHAT SHE MEANT AND WHY SHE SAID IT. Once the identity of "liar" is established, the politician is trapped like a spider in a web. Anything they say is discounted.
Now, a decent press could change this. They could, say, investigate the story of the woman who died for the lack of $100 in Ohio, and try to establish what the story was. Instead, Hillary hears a story from a deputy sheriff and family member. She repeats the story without naming the woman or the hospital. The WaPo looks up the woman's name. This prompts ONE of the hospitals involved in the story to say, "Stop telling that story! It wasn't us!" Well, no, it wasn't, and Hillary never claimed that. But that is accepted as "truth," because, well, Hillary lies, right? But the story, which she heard, is probably more true than not, though it was the prior hospital that insisted on the $100 for a visit, when it could have done some good. It was the lack of prenatal care that killed that woman, and she lacked it because of a lack of insurance.
Those Obama supporters who leap on this story so eagerly should just remember one thing: the Rev. Wright. The exact same propaganda/truth torturing methods were used here, and it might have sunk Obama's campaign. And there will be more attacks like that to come.
Support the candidate you want, but don't use this vicious method on another Democrat. If anyone's dividing the Democratic party, it's that method of "gotcha!" crap.
Or maybe you think Al Gore did claim to invent the Internet.
It may be relevant to this discussion that popular books like "Sybil" on multiple personality disorders have been largely debunked as psychologists' fantasies. You would need to check with a professioal on this , but my understanding is that psychologists now believe that the sort of extreme multiple personalities described in these books really exist only in Hollywood films.
As for "mythomania," I would assume most readers of this blog have several more-or-less sane co-workers, friends, or relations that exaggerate or "misstate" at least as much as Hillary Clinton. As for polititians, remember how Ronald Reagan was convinced he had actually fought in World War II instead of just making war movies?
To be a true pathology, the fantasies would have to be far more extreme. An example would be the famous "911 Survivor" and spokeswoman who turned out not to have been at the World Trade Center at all.
"[W]e are talking about a clinical condition that could make her [Clinton] dangerously ill-suited to become President and Commander in Chief."
continuing on "...though not as nearly as dangerous as the sociopath currently (Bush) occupying the White House."