Yesterday we reported about a conversation between Hillary Clinton and the editors of the Conway Daily Sun about UFOs and Area 51. But when the story finally reached CNN’s Eli Watkins today, Ms. Clinton’s serious promise to look into UFOs and Area 51 became “tongue in cheek.”
According to Mr. Watkins:
During a meeting with The Conway Daily Sun, Hillary Clinton jokingly pledged to look into UFO’s, an article from the New Hampshire paper says.
“Yes, I’m going to get to the bottom of it,” Clinton said, tongue-in-cheek, in response to a question from reporter Daymond Steer on UFOs.
During the meeting, the former first lady, former senator from New York and secretary of state answered serious questions about foreign policy and the economy, and at the end, she chatted with this reporter, who had asked her about UFOs the last time she visited. She recalled that 2007 exchange with a smile and seemed to have fun discussing the topic.
“Yes, I’m going to get to the bottom of it,” said Clinton with enthusiasm.
(…)When asked about her husband’s nonchalant comment about contact with the third kind, Hillary Clinton responded: “I think we may have been (visited already). We don’t know for sure.”
Clinton also said she would like to look into Area 51, a secret military base in Nevada that has long been rumored to contain aliens. At first, she called it Area 54 and then corrected herself.
(…) Hillary Clinton, while at the Sun, added that the chairman of her campaign, John Podesta, is a huge fan of UFO lore. She said he enjoys a sci-fi show on the FX network. Podesta served as chief of staff to Bill Clinton and counselor to the president for Barack Obama.
“He has made me personally pledge we are going to get the information out,” said Clinton. “One way or another. Maybe we could have, like, a task force to go to Area 51.”
Obviously Mr. Watkins read the article and found her promise about UFOs and Area 51 to be just as ridiculous as I did. Or maybe he wondered what kind of investigation Hillary could lead, after all this is a woman who can’t keep track of her emails. Maybe he assumed that if there was some sort of secret defense program happening at Area 51 he didn’t want her to know? Because based on the emails that have been released (at least 1,250 of the emails on her unsecured personal server contained classified information) she isn’t very good at protecting our nation’s secrets.
But his job wasn’t to protect Hillary, it was to relate the truth to the readers. Instead Mr. Watkins decided to protect Hillary Clinton, by making up a story about her UFO promise being made tongue-in-cheek. That’s why CNN is also known as the Clinton News Network.