Anyone Seen A Chicken With Lips?

Radiovice (ht: Powerline, here) has posted a clip from the Hillary Clinton's interview with Tim Russert on "Meet The Press," earlier today. In it, you will hear that she actually claims credit for the success of the surge, through her demands for troop withdraws. Hillary says she and the Democrats scared the Iraqis into compliance with the benchmarks, by all their talk of withdraw, and, therefore, they now deserve the credit for the success of the surge.

Oh, . . . so it was all just a big ruse on the part of Hillary Clinton and the Democrats to demand the immediate withdraw of our troops in order to underscore the U.S. success! Boy, they sure had me fooled!

So, all along the Democrats must have been working in complete concert with the Bush Administration in order to "fool" the Iraqis into successfully meeting so many of those pesky benchmarks.

Please, watch the clip of her telling Tim Russert why she personally, and the other Democrats who at the time vehemently opposed the surge, now deserve all the credit for the success of the strategy!

Years ago, comedian Tommy Smothers, one of the Smothers Brothers, had a very funny line about someone whom everyone obviously knew was lying. He would say, in his inimitable mock-serious tone,

"Some people believe that. And, some people believe the've seen a chicken with lips."

I was also trying to think of possible analogous historical "antecedents" to this utterly preposterous claim by H. Clinton -- you know, like Neville Chamberlain taking the credit for Churchill's wartime successes, asserting that it was really he who had deliberately lulled Hitler into overconfidence through his appeasement policy at Munich.

Or, perhaps Jimmy Carter claiming that the success of Ronald Reagan's upending of the Soviet Union, was in large measure due to Carter's own efforts in convincing the Soviets that the United States was willingly tossing away any notion of eventually prevailing in the Cold War.

And then it hit me what this Clinton claim really reminded me of.

I remembered a good story I heard many years ago, right after I got out of law school. It was told to me by a guy named John, who had been practicing law for a few years as a public defender here in New Jersey. John was -- and still is, by the way -- a very funny guy. He can locate the humor in the most trying of circumstances, and bring it out.

One night, after having a few beers, John was telling a few of us a "war story" about a criminal client he had had who'd been facing a nearly insurmountable murder charge, arising out of a fatal stabbing that had taken place in the presence of several witnesses. According to John, the defendant simply had no friends. No one liked the guy. His situation was so dire that, as I recall, even the defendant's own brother was going to testify against him at trial!

In other words, he was "going down!"

But, the defendant was also a very active and willing participant in the preparation of his own defense, often to the point of real annoyance. He frequently would call John at all hours of the day or night, to discuss the case.

As John told the story, late one evening John received a very anxious but excited call from the defendant from the phone in the jail.

"John," the defendant exclaimed breathlessly, "I've got it!"

"You've got what?" inquired John, who had been awakened from a nap to take the call.

"I figured out what I'm going to say in court," said the defendant triumphantly.

"What?" asked John, obviously concerned that the guy was even thinking about testifying.

"I'm going to tell them I was pulling the knife out!"

Now, I never knew for sure whether that actually happened, or whether John might have embellished the story a bit. Or maybe it was just John's version of an old defense attorney's tale. Didn't matter. When you heard John tell the story, you willingly suspended disbelief. You could see it in your mind's eye.

But when I watched this clip of Hillary earlier, there was no willing suspension of disbelief! Clearly, she was dead wrong with her politically motivated opposition to the surge. And she was a complete disgrace when she as much as called General Petraeus a liar during the hearings. Now, she is simply and desperately looking for an escape hatch.

The point is, I guess, that if you want to believe what she is saying now, then you will also have to believe that, all along, it was Hillary who was really pulling the knife out! If so, get the lipstick ready. Here come the chickens!