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Blog House: Maybe it was more like 'Kumbaya'

Attila Kisbenedek, Agence France-Presse

Hillary Clinton visited Bosnia in 1996. No snipers participated in the making of this photo.

Last update: March 26, 2008 - 6:47 PM

Did you hear how Hillary Clinton invented the Internet?

That's the "claim" that got Al Gore in trouble in 2000. Now it's Clinton who stands to be labeled a serial exaggerator, after her account of a 1996 trip to Bosnia failed to jive with the facts.

In an attempt to give herself some commander-in-chief cred, Clinton had recounted a greeting at the Tuzla air base full of sniper fire and personal peril. It was worthy of a Vince Flynn novel. And, like Flynn's books, it turned out to be fiction. Film footage showed Clinton greeting a young girl, local officials and U.S. servicemen and women at the airport.

In her defense, she said she was tired and had misspoken. John Aravoisis at AMERICAblog (1) wasn't buying it. "[Clinton] said it four times over four months. She sent out scores of aides to defend the comments -- comments she said FOUR TIMES. And now she expects us to believe that she only said it once a week ago, so it was a slip of the tongue (mind you, it was a minute long slip of the tongue)?"

Barack Obama supporter Kos (2) said Clinton has called into question a basic premise of her candidacy. "If Hillary Clinton lied about snipers in Bosnia because of sleep deprivation (doubtful, given it's a lie she's said at least four times), then what will she do when she gets that call at 3 a.m.?"

Conservative bloggers were, to say the least, gleeful. Commentary's (3) Jennifer Rubin wrote, "The Clintons are, after all, accomplished 'embellishers,' and it should come as no surprise that reality does not match her tales of grandeur."

Andy Borowitz at the Huffington Post (4) imagined an equally plausible story Clinton could have told: "Accused in recent days of embellishing her story of a brush with sniper fire in Bosnia, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton today said 'don't be fooled' by photos showing her being greeted at the airport by a pony-tailed 8-year-old Bosnian girl with a bouquet of flowers. 'That was no little girl,' Sen. Clinton told reporters in Gary, Indiana. 'That was a covert ops midget sniper.' The New York senator said that moments after the 'so-called little girl' presented her with the flowers, she revealed what the bouquet had been hiding: 'a tiny semi-automatic weapon.'"

McCain's misstep

Clinton wasn't the only presidential candidate who had to step back from a statement. John McCain linked Al-Qaida in Iraq to Iran, a neat trick considering the two are mortal enemies. What's worse, even after correcting himself, he continued to make the link.

Josh Marshall (5) was alarmed. "[McCain's] record actually shows he's one of the most dangerous people we could have in the Oval Office in coming years -- not just because he's a hothead in using the military, but more because he seems genuinely clueless about the real challenges and dangers the country is facing."

And Andrew Sullivan (6) wondered if, as with Clinton's gaffe, doubts about McCain's fitness for office had been raised. "Is McCain ready on Day One? These repeated gaffes about al Qaida being helped by Iran are beginning to make me wonder. I assumed he was more cognizant of the complex realities of Iraq than our current president."

Bright light or dim bulb?

After more than a year in the U.S. House, Rep. Michele Bachmann has finally found an issue worth her time and effort: The defense of traditional light bulbs. Her contention is that the government has no right to tell law-abiding Americans that they must use energy-efficient compact fluorescent lights.

"Here is Bachmann, the anti-gay-rights crusader in chief, running around warning about Big Brother intruding into our homes," wrote Zach at MnPublius (7). "Absurd. Apparently, Bachmann is fine with Big Brother poking his head into the bedrooms of gay people, but he better stay away from their light fixtures. Put it another way, Bachmann thinks that homosexuals have a right to incandescent light bulbs, but don't have a right to be free from discrimination in the workplace."

Take it outside

Forest Lake High School raised some eyebrows this week when, under the threat of an antiwar protest, it canceled an invitation to a group of veterans from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to speak at the school. The vets, part of the National Heroes Tour, sponsored by Vets for Freedom, spoke to an American Legion club instead. "In the La La land inhabited by the liberals in Minneapolis the voices of our heroes cannot be heard unless countered by the progressive voices of the anti-war crowd, and even then they are not suitable for High School children," blogged Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive (8), cartographic nuance notwithstanding. "I mean God forbid they gain a positive view of our military or hear that brave deeds have been done in support of 'Bush's illegal war.'"

tobrien@startribune.com