Examining Two Claims: Hillary’s Marine Corps Rejection Vs. Carly’s Draft Card

On the heels of the blistering scrutiny being given to presidential candidate and street-fighting holocaust comic Ben Carson‘s autobiographical claims, the media has turned its attention to Hillary Clinton‘s recent revival of that time she tried to join the Marine Corps. At a Candidates Cafe event in New Hampshire Tuesday, Hillary recounted the tale once more:

Hillary Clinton – I tried to join the Marines_001 by tommyxtopher

“He looks at me and goes, ‘Um, how old are you. And I said, ‘Well I am 26, I will be 27.’ And he goes, ‘Well, that is kind of old for us.’ And then he says to me, and this is what gets me, ‘Maybe the dogs will take you,’ meaning the Army.”

The story is part of the Hillary Clinton canon, and one that she first made in 1994. Now that everyone’s piling on a Republican who richly deserves it, though, the media must now investigate. The Washington Post‘s fact-checker Glenn Kessler did just that, and decided that Hillary probably did try to join the Marines, but also that she was kinda lying because she only did it to prove a point about sexism:

At first glance, this story doesn’t really add up, for the reasons that Dowd initially outlined. But as we noted The Post did locate friends who recalled she had tried to join the Marines, though the circumstances are fuzzy.

Clinton suggests she simply decided to join the Marines, as part of way to serve the country. But it makes more sense that she approached the Marines as part of a deliberate effort to test the boundaries available to women.

…But the circumstances are in question. She pitches it as a matter of public service, but her friends suggest it was something different. So at this point Clinton’s story is worthy of Two Pinocchios, subject to change if more information becomes available.

That’s a peculiar ruling, but only if you’re new to the mainstream media’s obsession with maintaining their precious “both sides” narrative. As far as Glenn Kessler knows, Hillary is telling the truth, but she gets “Two Pinocchios” anyway. Whatever, dude. It’s not like she claimed the Marines offered her a full scholarship to the Army.

Kessler also couldn’t help bringing up the “Snipergate” story that became a minor campaign snafu in 2008, and will probably be rehashed again when the Republicans finally settle on a nominee.

In the interest of maintaining that precious equilibrium, however, I encourage the media to examine another recent military recruitment claim by a woman who’s running for president. Just a few days before Hillary told her Marines story again, former Hewlett-Packard CEO and fetal snuff-film aficionado Carly Fiorina sat in that same diner and told voters of her own brush with military service, due to her male-sounding name:

Carly Fiorina – I got a draft card_001 by tommyxtopher

“I would get sent in for physicals with the boys, I got a draft notice, literally!”

Carly Fiorina says she literally got a draft notice because her name was “Carleton,” which sounds to me like an unbelievable screw-up. In order to believe that claim on its face, you would need to believe that somewhere in the Selective Service process, someone or something is making determinations based on the degree to which a name matches a gender, which would come as a big surprise to all the Vietnam veterans who were named Tracy.

But even if that were the case, Fiorina’s full name was Cara Carleton Sneed at the time she became eligible for the draft.  That’s a tough mistake to make.

The nice thing is that this story is very easy to verify. All Carly Fiorina has to do is produce that draft card (if she didn’t burn it), or authorize the Selective Service System to release it. Case closed.

Of course, that will only lead to media demands for Hillary Clinton to produce the NASA rejection letter she referenced at a town hall meeting in July:

Hillary – NASA turned me down_001 by tommyxtopher

All of this autobiographical microscopy, whatever you think of it, is nothing new, despite Ben Carson’s claims to the contrary. At his gonzo press conference last week, Carson specifically accused the media of giving then-Senator Barack Obama a pass on these sorts of details, obviously forgetting that an essay that Obama wrote in kindergarten became an issue during that campaign.

Whomever the Republicans pick as their nominee, Hillary Clinton is going to have something of a built-in advantage when it comes to this particular media lens. She’s been picked apart for almost thirty years now, so whatever fish stories she’s told are old news by now. Current GOP frontrunners like Ben Carson and Donald Trump have vast catalogs of public pronouncements that are ripe to be sifted through, and which voters haven’t necessarily heard before. If nothing else, Clinton’s campaign would have to be much more well-practiced at handling issues such as these, and hopefully better than they were in 2008.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.