“So I Misspoke,” Said the Foreign Policy Expert

ARTICLE SYNOPSIS:

Hillary Clinton wants Americans to believe her limited role as First Lady during the 1990s has equipped her with foreign policy credentials. She has now been caught in a dramatic embellishment of one incident and is claiming that she only "misspoke" when falsely describing it.
Follow this link to the original source: "Clinton Says She 'Misspoke' About Dodging Sniper Fire"

COMMENTARY:

It was March 1996 and the war in Bosnia was raging. First Lady Hillary Clinton traveled to the area with her daughter on a good-will trip to boost morale among both the U.S. forces and the beleaguered citizens of Tuzla. Twelve years later, in an attempt to establish her credentials as the candidate for president with the most foreign policy "strength and experience," she made the trip seem like she had dodged bullets when her plane landed, run for cover, and performed like a hard-nosed military veteran. But she has now been forced to admit cooking up the story. She didn't lie, you understand, she simply "misspoke."

In her campaign speech only a few days ago in Pennsylvania, where the next important primary will be held, Mrs. Clinton told potential voters, "I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of greeting at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base." Photographer Doug Mills was alongside her and he remembers no sniper fire. Retired General William Nash, then commander of U.S. forces in Bosnia, met the plane and recalls, “There was no sniper threat that I know of. She never had her head down." She was met by U.S. Ambassador John Menzies, acting Bosnian President Ejup Ganic, and an 8-year-old girl who read a poem to her. Hardly a combat scene. And photos unearthed from 12-year-old files show her with daughter Chelsea smiling and greeting soldiers on arrival.

Even if all of her claims about the incident were factual, do they equip her with the foreign policy experience she claims? Of course not! She did go on a good-will trip into a war zone, a questionable foray to begin with. If doing so means she is now a qualified foreign affairs expert, then comedian Sinbad and singer Sheryl Crow, both of whom accompanied her on the trip, should also run for high office. Asked about the incident, Sinbad laughingly confirmed the absence of any danger and admited that the greatest worry he had was where he would get his next meal.

The U.S. Constitution assigns no role to the wife of a president. A president isn't even required to have a wife. Granted, if a wife is willing to boost troop morale by traveling great distances, even into semi-dangerous regions, she should be thanked. But claiming that doing so means she is now capable of being commander-in-chief is a monumental stretch. Embellishing such an experience with outright falsehoods indicates that her claim of "strength and experience" to lead the nation is as false as the phony details she provided. But she didn't lie to the Pennsylvanians, she merely "misspoke."