Last week, Sen. Hillary Clinton said she "misspoke" when she gave a dramatic description of her arrival in Bosnia 12 years ago, recounting a landing under sniper fire. Giving a speech on foreign policy to George Washington University, she recalled her arrival as dangerous to back up her argument that she has the foreign policy experience needed to be commander in chief. Video footage later arose showing Clinton smiling and greeting people with the people of Bosnia upon her arrival.
The following Monday, during the editorial meeting with the Daily News, Clinton responded to the discrepancy with, "Now let me tell you what I can remember, OK -- because what I was told was that we had to land a certain way and move quickly because of the threat of sniper fire. So I misspoke -- I didn't say that in my book or other times but if I said something that made it seem as though there was actual fire -- that's not what I was told," she told the newspaper."I was told we had to land a certain way, we had to have our bulletproof stuff on because of the threat of sniper fire. I was also told that the greeting ceremony had been moved away from the tarmac but that there was this 8-year-old girl and, I can't, I can't rush by her, I've got to at least greet her -- so I greeted her, I took her stuff and then I left. Now that's my memory of it." Afterwards, Clinton tried to change the subject, but was constantly bombarded with questions being that the focal point of her campaign is on foreign policy.
I believe that the crisis management executed in this ordeal concerning Clinton was well done, but still may of hurt her in beating Obama. She handled it promptly, was willing to answer any questions, and gave reasonable, well thought out, explanations for what she said. A bigger problem to Clinton's campaign was that this gave Obama a chance to use this against her. The pr effort executed by Obama was smart because it would make him look better and tackle her driving force that she had against him. It was almost effective crisis management from an outside party, if you will. Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for rival Sen. Barack Obama's campaign, said the Bosnia claim was part of "a growing list of instances in which Sen. Clinton has exaggerated her role in foreign and domestic policy making."All in all Clinton did what she could to correct the damage done, but Obama gained from implementing an excellent pr effort.
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www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/25/campaign.wrap/index.html
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