Family-Friendly Comedian to Hillary Clinton: You's a Gotdamn Lie.

Oh, it’s about to get irreverent up in here.

Hillary Clinton, eager to boost her ‘red phone’ credentials, has been citing a 1996 trip to the Balkans as part of her foreign policy experience.

Also on that trip? Sheryl Crow and Walter Oakes Sinbad. Sinbad, a Barack Obama supporter, said to Mary Ann Akers of the Washington Post that Clinton’s recollection of the trip was more than a little embellished, and questioned how important her visit actually was.

Clinton, during a late December campaign appearance in Iowa, described a hair-raising corkscrew landing in war-torn Bosnia, a trip she took with her then-teenage daughter, Chelsea. “They said there might be sniper fire,” Clinton said.

Threat of bullets? Sinbad doesn’t remember that, either.

“I never felt that I was in a dangerous position. I never felt being in a sense of peril, or ‘Oh, God, I hope I’m going to be OK when I get out of this helicopter or when I get out of his tank.'”

In her Iowa stump speech, Clinton also said, “We used to say in the White House that if a place is too dangerous, too small or too poor, send the First Lady.”

Say what? As Sinbad put it: “What kind of president would say, ‘Hey, man, I can’t go ’cause I might get shot so I’m going to send my wife…oh, and take a guitar player and a comedian with you.'”

As you may have guessed by now, Sinbad isn’t supporting Clinton for president. He’s an Obama guy. All because of Clinton.

“What got me about Hillary was her attitude of entitlement, like he messed up her plan, like he had no reason to be there,” Sinbad said. “I got angry. I actually got angry! I said, ‘I will be for Obama like never before.'”

But the Clinton campaign shot back.

Defending Clinton’s characterization of her Bosnia mission, campaign spokesman Phil Singer kindly provided experts from news stories written about the trip at the time, including a Washington Post story from May 26, 1996, that said, “This trip to Bosnia marks the first time since Roosevelt that a first lady has voyaged to a potential combat zone.”

Singer also cited a Kansas City Star article from September 2000 that quoted Sinbad as describing the situation in Bosnia as “so tense. It was Crips and Bloods.” (And that’s how Sinbad continued to characterize the situation in our interview Monday. He said, “At the time, we didn’t realize how crazy it was between the Bosnians and the Serbs. I didn’t realize how much hate was going on.”)

Still, defending Clinton against Sinbad the refuter, Singer said, “The sad reality of what was going on in Bosnia at the time Senator Clinton traveled there as first lady has been well documented. It appears that Sinbad’s experience in Bosnia goes back further than Senator Obama’s does. In fact, has Senator Obama ever been to Bosnia?”

Wow. A serious contender for president is beefing with Sinbad. Just swish that around in your mouth for a minute. Let it sink in.

Sinbad Unloads on Hillary Clinton. [WP]

G.D.

G.D.

Gene "G.D." Demby is the founder and editor of PostBourgie. In his day job, he blogs and reports on race and ethnicity for NPR's Code Switch team.
G.D.
  • slb

    Awesome. Like, truly.

    Sinbad is getting rather ornery in his old age… but in a good way (as opposed to the Bill Cosby way).

  • LH

    Yeah … Sinbad has donated millions of dollars to send disadvantaged kids to college and dared to offend the Committee on Keepin’ It Real whilst Cosby has gone kicking and screaming into obscurity after having done nothing of note to help anyone when he was ‘popular.’ Good ol’ ornery Sinbad.

    I could be wrong but something tells me that Clinton was a higher value target than Sinbad, which would at least suggest that if any threats were made they’d have been against her. Why would he have been kept in that loop?

  • slb

    Why would he have been asked to go at all, as a comedian, or Sheryl Crow, as a singer, or Chelsea, as a mere teenager, if this were a perilous trip? Clinton went there for morale boosting and it’s doubtful that anyone was targeting a comedian, a singer, and a first lady–which is his point to begin with. It wasn’t a trip to meet with leaders or to discuss foreign policy. It was for morale-boosting, stand-up comedy, and concert sets.

  • LH

    I think any trip by a public figure from America to that part of the world at that time could reasonably be considered dangerous, though perhaps not to the extent that Clinton and, now, her flack have made it seem.

  • Aisha

    Sinbad for VP. He’s more qualified than BHO right? Anyway this is a great story. I’m still trying to figure out why her experience as first lady is so much more important than BHO’s time on the street of the south side and state senate experience? I’m sure she claims her full resume why can’t he? You went on a trip with Sinbad and Sheryl Crow and you are claiming that? Surely she jests. I’m like Sinbad;I was cool with Hillary but she’s getting on my gotdamn nerves right now. Clearly the American public ignores experience anyway, look who we have now? What about Edwards? Does anyone ever say he lacked experience? Can you tell I’m heated at 8AM?

  • This election continues excavate old celebs..first Geraldine Ferraro, now Sinbad.

  • Love this. And I agree with slb, why in the hell would they send a teenager and friggin’ Sheryl Crow if this trip were really that dangerous? Ridic.

  • Hillary and Bill Clinton have made a significant issue about how the press is treating Hillary unfairly in their hyper-critical reporting on her and their “softball” reporting on Barak Obama. Hillary maintains she has been fully investigated by the media and Barak hasn’t! As the Tony Rezko trial begins in Chicago, Clinton and her surrogates are linking Obama to Rezko and the media is speculating about whether Obama will be called to testify as a witness in the case. Obama has always admitted he received $85,000 in contributions from Rezko which Obama has now donated to charity rather than keep. Yet the civil fraud trial of Bill Clinton for defrauduing Hillary’s largest donor in 2000 into giving her campaign more than $1.2 million, pending in Los Angeles courts since 2003, is now preparing for a November, 2008 trial. The discovery that is now proceeding after a February 21 hearing, and the pending trial, have NEVER been announced by the mainstream media. Hillary was able to extricate herself as a co-defendant in the case in January, 2008 after years of appeals to be protected by the First Amendment from tort claims arising out of federal campaign solicitations she made. Her abuse of the intent of California’s anti-SLAPP law after the California Supreme Court refused to dismiss her from the case in 2004 is emblematic of her contempt for the Rule of Law. Hillary will be called as a witness in both discovery and the trial according to the trial court Judge who so-advised Hillary’s attorney David Kendall when he dismissed Hillary as a co-defendant in 2007. A subpoena is being prepared this month and will be served personally on Hillary, along with Chelsea, Pa Gov. Ed Rendell, Al Gore and other well known political and media figures. Yet the media has refused to report about this landmark civil fraud case- brought by Hillary’s biggest 2000 donor to her Senate race, regarding allegations that were corroborated by the Department of Justice in the criminal trial of Hillary’s finance director David Rosen in May, 2005. That indictment and trial was credited as resulting from the civil suit’s allegations by Peter Paul, the Hollywood dot com millionaire Bill Clinton convinced to donate more than $1.2 million (according to the DOJ prosecutors and the FBI) to Hillary’s Senate campaign as part of a post White House business deal with Bill. The media – except for World Net Daily- has also suspiciously refused to report on Hillary’s last FEC report regarding her 2000 Senate campaign, filed in January 30, 2006. In a secret settlement of an FEC complaint by the plaintiff in Paul v Clinton, Peter Paul, the FEC fined Hillary’s campaign $35,000 for hiding more than $720,000 in donations from Paul, and it required Hillary’s campaign to file a 4th amended FEC report. In that report Hillary and her campaign again hid Paul’s $1.2 million contribution to her campaign and falsely attributed $250,000 as being donated by Paul’s partner, Spider Man creator Stan Lee, who swore in a video taped deposition he never gave Hillary or her campaign any money. Lee did testify to trading $100,000 checks with Paul to make it appear he gave $100,000 to Hillary’s campaign (admission of a felony) but none of that has been reported by the “overly critical” media! Where is the outrage from Obama that the press is engaging in a double standard relating to his possible role in the Rezko trial and his refunding the $85,000 contributed to his campaign by Rezko- which Obama has always admitted taking. The media makes no mention of Hillary’s role as a witness in Bill’s fraud trial for defrauding Hillary’s largest donor- and Hillary’s refusal to refund the $1.2 million she illegally received from Paul, which she has denied taking from Paul ever since the Washington Post asked her about Paul and his felony convictions from the 1970’s before her first Senate election in 2000? Visit Hillcap.org for videos and info.

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