Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, April 16, 2008: In the most recent debate between the two remaining Democratic presidential candidates, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton responded to a question concerning her misstatements about landing in Bosnia under sniper fire in 1996. Her response was, "I may be a lot of things but I’m not dumb. On a couple of occasions in the last weeks, I just said some things that were not in keeping with what I knew to be true."
Translation: Clinton acknowledged that she knowingly and premeditatively lied on at least a couple of occasions during the past couple of weeks.
Commentary: I applaud Senator Clinton for taking responsibility for having lied AND I am deeply alarmed by this latest example of lack of integrity when it comes to the US presidency. Clinton’s husband, Bill, is responsible for the notorious lie in a televised public address regarding his affair with Monica Lewinsky: "I did not have sex with that woman." It is now well established that President Bush and many members of his administraton clearly lied numerous times about critical information having to do with Iraq. And now we have a next person wanting to become President of the United States who is clearly willing to follow in this devastatingly damaging tradition.
I agree with Senator Clinton that she is no dummy: I have no doubt that she has lots of IQ points, as in conventional "intelligence quotient." However, from how she worded her admission I cannot help but wonder whether she was indirectly saying she lied against her better judgment because one or more of her trusted advisors told her she needed to do this. If so, Clinton’s Leadership IQ is nowhere near as high as her Conventional IQ. But, even if my speculation about this is inaccurate, Clinton has again demonstrated that her Integrity IQ is very much in question.
In fact, as of today, her PIRT (Politician Integrity Rating Scale) score is the lowest of all three candidates, with an utterly abysmal 32 out of 100. (Note that McCain only has a 46 and Obama is the current ‘leader,’ if you could call it that, with a frighteningly low 54 out of 100. If the PIRT were a school test, none of these candidates would come close to a passing grade!)
For her willingness to knowingly lie to the American people as a presidential candidate to aggrandize her own image, and for her willingness to so blatantly role-model to the American people that it’s okay for leaders to deliberately lie, Senator Hillary Clinton is the recipient of today’s IntegrityWatch Integrity Disgrace Award.
