The media is claiming Hillary Clinton apologized for saying “we’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business” during a town hall event in March. They are wrong. Mrs. Clinton was confronted Monday by an out-of-work coal worker in West Virginia who took issue with the former Secretary of State’s anti-coal comments. Not only did Mrs. Clinton not apologize for the remark, she also lied about the context and intent behind the remark.
First, let’s remember exactly how Jazz described Mrs. Clinton’s boast that she’d use her authority in the federal government to bring an end to America’s embattled coal industry. (video after jump)
In order to establish her bona fides with the Democratic base, Secretary Clinton made sure to let everyone know that she was going to be replacing all of that nasty, dirty, fossil fuel energy which supplies more than two thirds of the juice on our grid with renewable resources. But that’s just standard fare for liberals and not enough to make you a true warrior of the Left. To really put the icing on the cake, the Democratic front-runner decided to get a rise out of the highly supportive crowd with a promise to largely wipe out an industry which provides tens of thousands of jobs.
It was during that town hall that she claimed “we’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.”
Monday, her day of reckoning arrived when out-of-work West Virginia coal miner Bo Copley confronted her with tears in his eyes. The Daily Caller describes the scene:
“I just want to know how you can say you’re going to put a lot of coal miners out of, out of jobs, and then come in here and tell us how you’re going to be our friend, because those people out there don’t see you as a friend,” Copley told Clinton, referring to dozens of protesters gathered outside of Monday’s round-table session who shouted at the candidate to “Go home!” as she arrived.
Hillary replied in true Clintonian fashion by blaming either the media or the coal miner, himself, for not fully understanding what she really meant and for taking her words out of context.
{youtube}WVI2yBIt5HQ{/youtube}
“I don’t know how to explain it other than what I said was totally out of context from what I meant, because I’ve been talking about helping coal country for a very long time,” Clinton said. She then claimed the whole episode was a “misstatement.”
“And it was a misstatement, because what I was saying is that the way things are going now, we will continue to lose jobs. I didn’t mean that we were going to do it, what I said was, that is going to happen unless we take action to try to and help and prevent it.”
You see? It was a misstatement and it was taken out of context. Is it me, or are those two, contradictory excuses. Either the statement was correct, but taken out of context. Or, the statement was incorrect (a misstatement) and therefore, the context is irrelevant.
Nevertheless, her explanation is a complete lie. And the media is allowing her to attempt wriggle out of this awkward gaffe by only playing the one line, “we’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.” Let’s look at exactly what Mrs. Clinton said, in context (as she demands) and let’s look at the entirety of her statement.
