Media Matters’ Bogus “Fabricated Quotes” Charge
Desperately trying to defend Hillary Clinton from her own lies, an April 24, 2006, Media Matters post accuses author Thomas D. Kuiper, author of "I’ve Always Been A Yankee Fan": Hillary Clinton in Her Own Words, of "fabricated quotes."
In fact, a close look at the text of the book itself reveals that Kuiper did no such thing. The only fabricating comes from Media Matters. For example,
1. Media Matters writes,
Kuiper’s claim that [Hillary] Clinton said her daughter, Chelsea Clinton, was jogging around the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, is false.
Oh, really? Even Media Matters admits that Hillary Clinton said this on the September 17, 2001, edition of NBC’s Dateline:
"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."
"Towers"? "Battery Park"? Where does Media Matters think Hillary was talking about? Paris? Hillary clearly and explicitly left her listeners the impression that Chelsea was getting a cup of cofee on a jog when the planes hit the World Trade Center.
2. Media Matters writes,
On page 138 of I’ve Always Been a Yankees Fan, Kuiper quoted Hillary saying in 1995: "So when I was born, she [Clinton’s mother, Dorothy Rodham] called me Hillary, and she always told me it’s because of Sir Edmund Hillary."
Of this quote, Kuiper wrote in the book:
First Lady Hillary Clinton explaining that she was named after famous explorer, Sir Edmund Hillary (The New York Times, 04/03/95). Only problem — Hillary Rodham was born five years before Edmund Hillary became famous by scaling Mt. Everest in 1953. The year she was born [1947], Edmund Hillary was an obscure beekeeper in New Zealand.
As the quote indicates, however, Clinton herself did not claim "to be named after Edmund Hillary," as Kuiper said in the press release. Rather, she explained that her mother told her she was named for the explorer.
Uhhh … "Her mother told her"? Ugh. This is parsing at best; dishonesty at worst.
"Fabricated Quotes"? Sorry, Media Matters. If this is the best that the left can come up with to attack Kuiper’s book, the author has done a marvelous job and should be congratulated!
