The Safire Word
by
Matt Giwer (c) 1996 <1/15>

      Of course that word is liar. It is the modifier "congenital" that is of interest. That was a matter of politeness upon the part of Mr. Safire.
      Congenital means the person was born with the trait and can not control it. That is the politest way to put it. The least polite would have been to leave out the adjective and tell it like it is.
      To anyone who has listened to her statements on anything related to any of the many subjects now being investigated, the only honest appraisal is that her statements were technically true but phrased in such a way as to mislead the person hearing them. Consider her carefully phrased claim of only having had a small part in Madison bank episode. What would have been the responsive if she had said, as the records now indicate and not even her paid apologists are denying, that she in fact supervised the entire matter?
      The difference of course is that she put a different spin on the matter which was technically true but completely misleading. And misleading impressions go a very long way. It still gets play that the supervisor of the entire matter can be made to appear to be only mildly involved.
      If I may point out, Nixon only supervised Watergate and could probably have turned in a record of fewer "billable hours" than did Hillary. When we are looking for who is responsible do we go to the lowest level or the person in charge? At work who is responsible if not the supervisor?
      I sit here shaking my head that not one of the talking heads nor even the committee members either pro or con are making this trivial point. The "Don't blame me, I was only the supervisor" defense is what gets the newly appointed supervisor back to the working level as quickly as the paperwork can be filled out. The supervisor is responsible for everything under their supervision.
      And since there is such a very strong claim that Hillary is such a superior person, it is doubly difficult she can avoid the credit for directing everything that happened. What else are supervisors for? That is the job of the supervisor.
      Whatever happened in this matter has to be presumed to have been at her direction, regardless of the number of directly billable hours even if none, and that the working level attorney was doing what she directed. That is what a supervisor does. With a good staff a supervisor needs to say both, "charge," and the direction. It has to be assumed that she gave the direction, reviewed the progress towards that direction and approved the progress. That is what supervisors are for.
      The hours spent in this supervisory capacity would not be billed to the client. There certainly were a number of them but there is no requirement to keep records of how many of them as they are not billed. They could have been as little as a few minutes to hundreds of hours.
      Back to the point. Given what we know and without adorning it or speculating we know that she supervised and therefore was in charge of what was done. Yet by the impression she left with her carefully chosen words is contrary to the known facts. That is considered a lie by most people I know. It is certainly something not acceptable even from children.
      "I have no memory of [exactly the way you worded] that event," is not considered an honest answer. Perhaps the question was, "Did you meet with her in the White House that night?" and the answer is, "No." If the truth is that they met outside the White House and entered separately then the answer is technically true but in fact a lie. When the imprecisely worded press conference question is answered "I spent very little time on it," and the truth is that she supervised it what are people to think? "Very little time" and "very little to do with" are entirely different things.
      And people want to know about the "to do with" not the hours involved. That is what all of the questions are about. And the answers have been phrased to deliberated mislead, that is to deliberately lie.
      That is why Safire was being polite. To say she is a congenital liar is to say she can not help it, that she was born with it. To describe it as deliberate is a greater condemnation. And of course it is deliberate and willful. And without question she is a deliberate liar.