Now that the major media have acknowledged en masse that Hillary Clinton lied shamelessly about landing in Bosnia to sniper fire, it seemed like the right moment to remember Mrs. Clinton’s claims about honesty and truthfulness in the famous Steve Kroft 60 Minutes interview in 1992 – not the part that aired in 1992, mind you, but a different set of snippets that aired on February 1, 1998, twelve days after the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke.
In these clips, pulled out from our archives for our book Whitewash, Hillary proclaimed "voters are tired of people who lie to them" and lectured about the Bible to Kroft as they discussed Bill Clinton’s alleged adultery, "You know, there are ten commandments, not one. And one of them is, ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.’" [Audio available here.]
Here’s an excerpt from Whitewash that offers more detail:
The new material 60 Minutes released in 1998 showed that Slippery Hillary had been sitting next to Slick Willie that day back in 1992. In a pickle, not only could Hillary lie, but she could share her husband’s chutzpah in supposedly standing up for the truth against all those other liars out there.
In the new excerpts, Kroft directly asked Hillary about how they defined "problems" in their marriage: "What does it mean in America in 1992, that you had ‘difficulties’?" Hillary struggled to stay vague: "We’ve had problems. We’ve had difficulties, in, in the past. And I agree with Bill that we—we think that’s between us." Fair enough, but then she went for the zinger: "We don’t owe anyone else besides each other the honesty that we’ve tried to bring as we’ve worked these problems out."
She also said, "Part of what I believe with all my heart is that the voters are tired of people that lie to them. They’re tired of people who act like something they’re not." Like acting like you have an Arkansas accent?
In another snippet out of the archives, Kroft suggested that Bill’s attractiveness to women was a political problem, and Hillary grew snippy: "You know, you are very good, Steve. You ask the same question nine or ten or twelve different ways and it—and—and I don’t mean to be avoiding the question," which is precisely what she was trying to do. She chose instead to moralize: "If character only revolves around one question—which is what you’re asking in the press—that’s a shame, you know, because there are a lot of other questions that are, if not more important, certainly equally important. You know, there are ten commandments, not one. And one of them is, ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.’"
It was the quintessential Hillary Rodham Clinton moment. Asked about her husband’s violations of the Sixth Commandment, Hillary had responded by accusing their critics of violating the Eight Commandment. It was "creepy and arrogant intimidation," National Review’s Kate O’Beirne commented when we interviewed her for this book. "‘Don’t dare believe these irresponsible charges.’ It was intimidation."
