I have to admit to being overwhelmed by all the numbers coming out of the Texas conventions today, so I'll just settle for the bottom-line: Barack Obama continues to grow his lead. The Field, Burnt Orange, and turneresq at Daily Kos all have more and understand this far better than I do.

Is it okay if I change my mind? Gallup +7. Rasmussen +6.

Actually, I'll claim consistency on this: my concern was when both of those polls were moving in opposite directions. Now that they are both moving in the same direction, each with healthy leads, we could be seeing something real.

Then again, it could still be luck. I do live in Las Vegas after all...

Update: Obama has pulled ahead of McCain in the RCP average for the first time in quite awhile. Clinton still trails.

Ohio is a closed primary state, with a twist. Unlike some closed primary states, you can change parties on the same day that you vote -- but according to state law, you must pledge support to your new party.

The idea here is to deter voters from one party voting in another's primary purely to muck up the process. For example, since McCain became the de facto GOP nominee in late February, Rush Limbaugh has encouraged Republicans to vote for Hillary Clinton to muck up the Democratic primary. In Mississippi, one-quarter of Clinton's voters were Republicans, and while there's some debate over whether Limbaugh was the primary reason for this, there's no debating that a large majority of Hillary's Mississippi Republicans had no intention of voting for her in the general.

Couldn't be...could it?

Yesterday, I noted a funny example of Hillary Clinton's pattern of prevarication: her campaign attacked him for lying, except the claim they made was false. They said:

Sen. Obama consistently and falsely claims that he was a law professor.

The University of Chicago, where Barack Obama was a law professor, then released a statement defending him:

From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School.

Today, I learned (via psericks) that the source for Clinton's claim was in part a Republican National Committee press release. Moreover, they did it in a cleverly dishonest way. Here's what their citation looked like:

[Hotline Blog, 4/9/07; Chicago Sun-Times, 8/8/04]

Notice anything missing? Like a link? Here's what the citation would have looked like with links:

[Hotline Blog, 4/9/07; Chicago Sun-Times, 8/8/04]

Now first of all, it doesn't really matter what your citations are when your facts are wrong, but least if rely on multiple sources for an assertion that turns out to be false, you have a strong claim to having made a mistake in good faith.

So I'll give them a mulligan on the Sun-Times article. But the Hotline Blog item is an entirely different matter -- because it turns out the blog entry was merely a regurgitation of an RNC press release.

April 09, 2007
RNC To Blast Obama As "Fabricator"

Barack Obama will guest on CBS' "The Late Show With David Letterman" tonight. He "shares the star billing" with actress Halle Berry (Sweet, Chicago Sun-Times, 4/9).

The RNC will blast e-mail "Obama's Top Ten Fabrications" to the press later today. (We'll add that these are "alleged" fabrications, and some of them are... a bit of a stretch.)

They include: "#6: Obama's Campaign Only Had 'Very Attenuated' Ties To The 1984 Ad Creator"

#10: Obama Was A Constitutional Law Professor

Even: "#8: Obama Was Fluent In Indonesian As A Child"

The full release, after the jump. This might be the first RNC e-mail the Clinton campaign will applaud and file away.

Emphasis added.

Are journalists paying attention to this kind of stuff? They should treat this as an insult to their intelligence. And they should treat this as yet another reason to accept nothing that the Clinton campaign says as truthful -- unless independently verified by an third-party.

General George S. Patton:

Never let the enemy pick the battle site.

Senator John S. McCain (March 24):

General Petraeus is correct when he says that the central battle ground in the struggle against Al Qaeda is Iraq and Osama Bin Laden just confirmed that. So General Petraeus and I and Osama Bin Laden are in agreement. It is hard to understand why Senator Clinton and Senator Obama do not understand that. I don’t know if its naïveté or what the problem is, but it’s obvious that they are dead wrong.

::

Here's a new video I put together on McCain and bin Laden's trap:

Gov. Schweitzer with his wife

I got nothing against Bob Casey, in fact I'm thrilled he endorsed Obama, but I don't see him as a VP.

1. If we need him to win PA, we're not winning the general.
2. He's a junior Senator -- outside of PA, nobody knows him.
3. He's pro-life.

I could see Brian Schweitzer, though. It's not that Montana is necessarily a battleground state on its own -- it's more that Schweitzer (I think) compliments Obama in a good way. He's independent, just like Obama, but he's also got that swashbuckling, shoot-from-the-hip attitude that plays well in entire Mountain West, which collectively should become a battleground, if not this election then in elections to come.

Almost 1,000,000 views of my videos!

Pretty soon, there will have been more than 1,000,000 views of the videos on my YouTube channel.

When I started futzing around with YouTube last year, I never even considered the possibility that I'd be able to communicate with so many people. I think one of the first videos I put online was of a bird pooping on President Bush so that my sister could see the video. Not a bad way to start.

Starting last November, after the Las Vegas debate, I went about trying to create videos with a message -- and most of them sucked terribly. I'd never done any real video editing before then. After Thanksgiving, I bought Adobe Premiere Elements packaged with Photoshop Elements. Combined, I think I spent $99.

Other than that, I haven't spent a dime on video creation -- just used my existing PCs and video capture equipment (I've built several HTPCs, which are essentially glorified DVRs).

I've gotten a little better with video editing, though it's still hit and miss. I still put out my fair share of clunkers.

But it's still pretty exciting to think that for $99 (and a lot of time), I've been able to reach a pretty large audience -- as a citizen.

It gives me faith in our democracy, and hope for our future. I would never underestimate the obstacles we face to achieving the change we desire, but I'm starting to think: maybe Barack Obama really is right, after all. Maybe we can do it.

An accomplishment that's been a wee bit overlooked.

It's going to be interesting watching President Obama govern. I don't recall a presidential candidate with such enthusiastic supporters, both conservative and progressive. It's a great thing for the campaign -- but it could be a challenge once he's in office. The good thing is that I think most of his supporters are unified by pragmatism in the best sense of the word -- not Machiavellian pragmatism, but the pragmatism that recognizes we do need to do something about global warming, we do need to do something about health care, we do need to strengthen the economy -- and of course, we do need to end the war in Iraq.

Early in the week, under fire for her constant pattern of prevarication, Hillary Clinton's campaign attacked Barack Obama...as a liar:

Just Embellished Words: Senator Obama’s Record of Exaggerations & Misstatements

Exhibit number 1?

Sen. Obama consistently and falsely claims that he was a law professor.

(Emphasis in original.)

Today, the University of Chicago, where Barack Obama was a law professor released a statement defending him:

From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School.

Oops. Can you trust anything they say?

(h/t: chumley)

Coming soon to a superdelegate near you, Mark J. Penn presents another unbelievable tale from Hillary Clinton.

The Washington Post says: "dubious...overstating her significance."

The UK Telegraph's Toby Harnden: "Give me a break...really pushing the blarney boat."

The sequel to Hillary in Tuzla.

Hillary in Ireland: "Peace at Last."

Opening summer 2008.

Pennsylvania's Democratic U.S. Senator Bob Casey -- now for Obama. Casey will join Obama on his six-day bus tour around the state -- his first stretch of serious campaigning in Pennsylvania.

I can't say how much this will mean at the polls, but when I used to live in Philadelphia, Senator Casey's father was very popular. More importantly, this is evidence of a growing trend of superdelegates closing ranks behind Barack Obama.

Chris Dodd takes it a step beyond Bill Richardson. We're still going to have Pennsylvania and North Carolina and Indiana, as we probably should. But once those contests are over, unless Hillary Clinton has won at least 60% of the pledged delegates it will be over. The superdelegates will end it. And even if she does get 60%, it doesn't mean she's won -- it just means she'll probably continue the campaign, albeit still as a huge underdog to overtake Obama's lead.

Update: Howard Dean chimes in, setting July 1 as a drop-dead date.

It's even worse in Vegas casinos, where I play. The Wynn supposedly has the cleanest chips.

When Cards and Germs Are Wild
One of the fastest ways to catch a cold? Your regular poker game.

No matter what version of poker you play, it’s a game where bluffers prosper. But some scientists have found that money isn’t the only thing people put to chance when they gather around the card table.

If you play the game regularly, you are likely to win an opponent’s achy, oozing cold. In fact, the sniffles are a more sure bet than going home with the most chips.

Lucky you. “Let’s say you’re sick, you cough into your hands, you pick up the cards and you shuffle and deal,” says Dr. Will Sawyer, of Cincinnati who has devoted his career to spreading the gospel of proper hand washing.

There's been no shortage of public handwringing about whether or not Barack Obama can attract support from white voters, particularly white men. Some of it has even been pushed by Hillary Clinton's campaign itself.

Most of the analysis has overlooked one important fact, however: Hillary Clinton has a bigger problem with white voters than Barack Obama.

New data from the Pew Research Center illustrates my point: although Hillary Clinton leads McCain among white women by three points, she trails among white men by twenty-three points. Meanwhile, Obama trails among white women by just one point, and trails among white men by fifteen. Obama's net margin relative to Clinton drops by four points among white women, but increases by eight points among white men.

Overall, that means Obama is doing slightly better with white voters than is Hillary Clinton.

And this is according to a poll conducted entirely after the Wright controversy played itself out.

Here's the data:

Update II: I neglected to make the point that that Obama's 43% support among white voters is actually strong -- especially in the wake of Wright. In 1992, Bill Clinton won 39% of white voters. In 1996, he won 43%. In 2000, Gore won 42%. In 2004, Kerry won 41%. So 43% is a pretty good starting point, especially with 7% undecided. (Obama currently trails McCain by 7%, while Gore lost by 12% and Kerry lost by 17%.)

Independents describing each candidate as:

• Honest: Clinton 44% - Obama 67%
• Phony: Clinton 49% - Obama 27%
• Hard-to-like: Clinton 50% - Obama 16%
• Inspiring: Clinton 49% - Obama 71%

(Pew)

Via Politico's Avi Zenilman, blogging for the vacationing Ben Smith, a newly released Pew Poll finds:

White Democrats who hold unfavorable views of Obama are much more likely than those who have favorable opinions of him to express less tolerant views on race. In addition, nearly a quarter of Democrats (23%) who hold a negative view of Obama believe he is a Muslim.

And:

There is little evidence that the recent news about Obama's affiliation with the United Church of Christ has dispelled the impression that he is Muslim. While voters who heard "a lot"about Reverend Wright's controversial sermons are more likely than those who have not to correctly identify Obama as a Christian, they are not substantially less likely to still believe that he is Muslim. Nearly one-in-ten (9%) of those who heard a lot about Wright still believe that Obama is Muslim.

Update: Here's a cross-tab focusing white Democrats and Democratic-leaners with racist, sexist, or blindly patriotic values, and of those who hold the false perception that Obama is a Muslim.

These voters are a substantial part of Hillary Clinton's base. One important question is whether this is serendipity for the Clinton campaign, or if she has actively shaped their unfavorable views towards Obama.

...to the daily tracking polls.

I know that Obama is leading Clinton in the Gallup Daily by four points. That's nice.

But it doesn't matter. a) Most voters have already voted and Obama has already won amongst those voters. b) Even if they hadn't voted, has any poll actually been on the money this entire campaign (only a slight exaggeration). c) Most of the changes we're seeing in these polls is purely random. Trust me on this point -- I live in Vegas and play poker. I know random, and I know skill. And this is mostly random.

There's been a surprising amount of buzz hinting at the possibility that Barack Obama might offer the VP slot to Mike Bloomberg -- speculation inspired by Bloomberg's introduction of Obama before today's economic policy speech in New York.

I'd bet pretty heavily against an Obama-Bloomberg pairing. For starters, the main thing that Bloomberg would bring to the table is the same thing that Obama already has: appeal to upper-income Democrats and independents. Geographically, Bloomberg has nothing to offer, and there's no indication that he'd be a great campaigner. I've even heard the idea that Obama ought to pick Bloomberg because he's Jewish. Speaking as a Jew, I can assure you that whether or not someone is Jewish is irrelevant to me -- and I think most Jews. I was not at all pleased with the selection of Joe Lieberman by Al Gore, for example.

Obama needs someone who will put a little pickup truck into his campaign. Names that come to mind are Bill Richardson, John Edwards, and Mark Brian Schweitzer. I'm sure there are others that would be good -- just not Bloomberg.

I could see Bloomberg as Treasury Secretary though.

Or is it just huge?

Here's why I ask. The Swamp reports that a new survey finds:

If the election were held today, California's likely voters would favor Obama over McCain by 49 to 40 percent, according to the survey. A Clinton-McCain match-up is a virtual tie: 46 percent Clinton, 43 percent McCain.

That's worth repeating: in California, "a Clinton-McCain match-up is a virtual tie."

The centerpiece of Hillary Clinton's Bosnia tale is that she was the first presidential spouse since Eleanor Roosevelt to visit a war zone.

Problem is...it's not true.

It turns out that former First Lady Pat Nixon visited a Vietnamese war zone in 1969 -- a trip the Washington Post today describes as more dangerous than Clinton's "by almost any measure."

Clinton's "first since Roosevelt" story is not a new one. Here's the opening sentence of the Washington Post's 1996 article about her trip there:

First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton invoked the memory of Eleanor Roosevelt as she visited U.S. troops in Bosnia today.

Now that Clinton is under fire for her umpteenth falsehood about the Bosnia story, her campaign is responding by arguing that contemporaneous accounts did not mention Pat Nixon's trip.

As the WaPo's Michael Dobbs argues, this is absurd.

Just because something has appeared in a newspaper does not mean that is entirely accurate. The Clinton camp has circulated a March 26, 1996, quote from a Post article describing Clinton's Bosnia trip as "the first time since Roosevelt that a first lady has voyaged to a potential combat zone." The article went on to say that "other first ladies have visited troops abroad but never in front-line positions," citing the examples of Bush and Nixon.

How these factoids got into the Post story is unclear, but they offer a somewhat misleading picture of the relative risks being run by the three first ladies. By almost any measure, the Nixon trip to Saigon in July 1969 should surely count as the most dangerous of the three visits. Unlike Bosnia in March 1996 and Saudi Arabia in November 1990, South Vietnam was an actual, not "potential," war zone in the aftermath of the 1968 Tet offensive, according to retired Army Lt. Col. Gene Boyer, the Nixons' chief helicopter pilot.

You know, I went to Bosnia shortly after the peace accords were signed, when it was safe enough to go to our base in Tuzla, but not very safe to go anywhere else. I couldn't get into Sarajevo. But I was able to fly out of Tuzla into two base camps -- Camp Alicia and Camp Bedrock -- to visit with the men and women who were there on the front lines of Americas peace-keeping efforts.

-- Hillary Clinton, April 9, 1999

(h/t: Andrew Sullivan)

Some top-line observations culled from Chuck Todd's writeup:

• Clinton's approval ratings is just 37% (48 disapprove), her lowest since 2001
  
• Obama's approval rating is 49% (32% disapprove)
  
• The head-to-head matchups were essentially tied, 45-45 for Obama-Clinton, and Obama +2 against McCain, Clinton -2 against McCain
  

Todd concludes with some very good news for Obama (in the context of tough news for the party as a whole):

One thing about these head-to-head matchups: Our pollsters found that for the second poll in a row, more than 20 percent of Clinton and Obama supporters say they would support McCain when he's matched up against the other Democrat. There is clearly some hardening of feelings among some of the most core supporters of both Democrats, though it may be Obama voters, who are more bitter in the long run.

Why? Because among Obama voters, Clinton has a net-negative personal rating (35-43) while Clinton voters have a net-positive view of Obama (50-29). Taken together, this appears to be evidence that Obama, initially, should have the easier time uniting the party than Clinton.

Considering the doom-and-gloom some predicted for Obama with regard to the Wright controversy, the overall tenor of the electorate appears to still be favorable for him.

I've lived in Las Vegas for the better part of 3 years now, but I don't think I'll ever get used to ~80 degree temperatures in March.

The good news is that I've successfully defeated the temptation to turn on the AC...

Or is it age? HuffPo:

Poll: McCain's Age Problem

A new poll from the NBC and the Wall Street Journal finds that voters have problems voting for a candidate of McCain's age, apparently far more than object to supporting either an African American or female candidate. MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell previewed the poll earlier today (the full results will be announced later tonight).

I just listened to a few minutes of Chris Matthews, Eugene Robinson, and Ron Brownstein discussing the Gallup survey showing more Clinton voters (28%) would support McCain in a general election than Obama supporters would support McCain (19%).

This is nothing new. It's a trend identified about a month ago by Pew. John Aravosis wrote about it in AMERICAblog earlier this month.

Implicit in their discussion is notion that Clinton's "downscale white voters" (as they like to call them) won't vote for Obama because Obama is black. But another explanation -- one that I find more plausible -- is that the reason why Clinton voters are more likely to oppose Obama than vice versa is that Clinton has been attacking Obama for longer than Obama has been attacking Clinton.

Now that Obama has started to return fire, the portion of his supporters who wouldn't support Clinton has increased -- from 10% in the Pew Poll to 19% today. (Clinton's numbers were virtually unchanged, 25% then, 28% now.) It makes complete sense that if one candidate attacks another, his or her hard core supporters will turn negative on the target of the attacks.

It's just a hypothesis, but I like it more than the other one.

I've had a couple of e-mails come over the transom that convey false allegations against HRC. From everything I can tell, the people who sent them weren't knowingly spreading false information, but the information nonetheless needs debunking.

The first false e-mail essentially states that one of the pastors of Hillary Clinton's church was just convicted of child molestation. The idea of the e-mail is to contrast HRC's exploitation of the Jeremiah Wright flap with her own pastor. Problem is, it's not true -- the pastor in question is the Clinton County pastor, not the Clinton family pastor. (Even if it were true I wouldn't think it should be an issue other than to point out Hillary Clinton's rank hypocrisy on the politicization of religion.)

The second false e-mail passes along a Dick Morris column claiming that Hillary Clinton made up a story about Chelsea Clinton's life being in mortal danger on 9/11. That's also not true -- it's something Morris has been peddling for some time now. It's important to keep in mind that you can't trust anything Dick Morris says about the Clintons -- they have a long and tortured relationship, and are currently on the outs. If anything, Dick Morris is a prime example of why Hillary Clinton shouldn't be president. Dick Morris is, after all, the guy who brought Mark Penn into Hillary Clinton's orbit; he's the guy who helped them perfect triangulation.

I'm not trying to call anybody out. It's just important to be accurate -- there's no reason to employ the kind of gutter politics that Clinton's campaign has been associated with. She has got more than enough legitimate targets for criticism anyway.

(Here's the inspiration for the title of this post.)

I don't say that in some sort of chest-thumping Lee Stevens kind of way.

What we do in this election will make a difference for the entire world. And it's not just pressing issues like our war in Iraq. It's also issues like global warming and our energy policy -- both of which in the long-run may be even more important.

Many Americans don't realize that if we paid as much attention to the rest of the world as they pay to us, we would be a hell of a lot better off as a nation.

Listening to HRC's press conference from yesterday and a reporter asks whether she'd consider Ed Rendell for VP. Answer? "Well, it would be premature to talk about something like that." Ha! It wasn't premature just a couple of weeks ago to condescendingly dangle the prize, but now it is?

Three things occur to me now that Hillary Clinton has decided to make Barack Obama's relationship with his pastor a political issue.

1. By criticizing the religious choice of a political rival, Hillary Clinton demonstrates a complete lack of respect for the concept embodied in Article Six of the United State Constitution which reads in part: "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

2. The reason why she tried to make this a political issue was to change the subject from the growing controversy about her pattern of deception on Bosnia, NAFTA, and everything in between.

Hillary Clinton's ongoing pattern of falsehoods is a serious issue. She's either lying or she has an overactive imagination and can't distinguish fact from fiction. In either case, she does not have staff willing to steer her back from fantasy-land.

As I wrote yesterday:

One thing is certain after George W. Bush -- we need a Commander-in-Chief who is firmly grounded in reality. When he or she makes a mistake, as will happen, he or she must also possess the type or personality and character that encourages subordinates to correct that mistake.

If the people around the President are afraid to speak truth to power, how will we ever get out of Iraq without making things worse than they currently are?

And if Clinton's statement turn out to have merely been lies, do we want another President in whom we can place not trust?

We know Clinton was wrong. What we don't know is whether she was lying or imagining things that were untrue. And isn't that the story of the Bush Presidency?

On Monday, The Columbian (the paper of record for southwest Washington State) ran a story that started filtering through to the national media on Tuesday.

Cantwell supporting Clinton -- for now

By KATHIE DURBIN Columbian Staff Writer

Sen. Maria Cantwell (Sen. Patty Murray and Gov. Christine Gregoire in background)

U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, one of Washington’s 17 Democratic superdelegates, isn’t ready to shift her allegiance from Sen. Hillary Clinton to Sen. Barack Obama — yet.

But in an interview with The Columbian’s editorial board Monday, she said the candidate with the most pledged delegates at the end of the primary season in late June will have the strongest claim to the party’s presidential nomination.

“I definitely don’t want the superdelegates to be the deciding factor,” she said.

“If we have a candidate who has the most delegates and the most states,” the Democratic party should come together around that candidate, Cantwell said. The pledged delegate count will be the most important factor, she said, because that is the basis of the nominating process.

Emphasis added.

Barack Obama has a virtual lock on the pledged delegate lead. He's already won a majority states.

By those metrics, he will become the nominee.

The only way Clinton becomes the nominee is if superdelegates adopt hare-brained lead-counting schemes like the hilarious electoral college proposal floated by Evan Bayh.

Increasingly, it's becoming clear that the uncommitted superdelegates won't flout the popular vote.

And now -- for the first time that I'm aware of -- a U.S. Senator backing Hillary Clinton has publicly stated her commitment to the pledged delegate count.

It's not the most sexy of stories, but it is something of a political earthquake.

More photographic evidence that the Tuzla sniper was real

NBC: ...Mentioned her further clarifying about Bosnia trip. Russert weighed in, said Clinton woke up awash in Bosnia stories...

CBS: Led with almost sarcastic package on Clinton’s Bosnia comments saying her one “misstatement” wasn’t the only one. Showed video of her using Bosnia to boost her national security creds several times throughout campaign. Pointed to another discrepancy in her telling Philly’s Daily News that she greeted the girl and immediately left the tarmac, when video shows she lingered. Says voters may now question her trustworthiness...

ABC: Led with Clinton’s Bosnia “embellishment” and her brushing off pressure to drop out. Said “substantive policy proposals” are being “all but drowned out” by the damage control she’s being forced to do....Tapper weighed in, said “jury is still out” on the harm the Bosnia flap will do. Said she needs to worry about her biggest weakness (perceived trustworthiness) undercutting her biggest strength (national security). Quoted one Democratic operative saying Clinton only has “Tonya Harding option” left, which is to knee cap Obama.

(h/t: Al Giordano)

Follow the bouncing ball:

• Mar. 25: Hillary Wants to Flip Pledged Delegates?
  
• Mar. 15: Clinton's Ickes again floats strategy to poaching Obama's pledged delegates
  
• Mar. 10: Clinton spokesman -- We won't poach delegates
  
• Mar. 9: Clinton says poaching pledged delegates fair game
  
• Mar. 5: Clinton aide floats poaching pledged delegates
  
• Feb. 19: Clinton campaign rules out poaching pledged delegates

This is funny.

(h/t: DJShay)

Shuster concludes that the record shows that Hillary Clinton helped NAFTA become law despite her claims to have been a NAFTA critic from the very beginning.

The Hill:

Clinton camp in lockdown mode over Bosnia flap

“We’ve said all we’re going to say on that,” said Deputy Communications Director Phil Singer on a Tuesday morning conference call with reporters.

A video from CBS News had shown that Clinton’s version of having come under sniper fire was not correct. Her campaign chalked up the discrepancy between her account and the video as a case of Clinton misspeaking.

Meanwhile, KDKA Pittsburgh radio interviewed Hillary Clinton today:

You know I have written about this and described it in many different settings and I did misspeak the other day. This has been a very long campaign. Occasionally, I am a human being like everybody else. The military took great care of us. They were worried about taking a First Lady to a war zone and took some extra precautions and worried about all sorts of things. I have written about it in my book and talked about it on many other occasions and last week, you know, for the first time in 12 or so years I misspoke.

Oh really? For the first time? What about the new video showing that she made the same false claim in February?

It comes from a February 29, 2008 campaign stop in Waco, Texas during which she told this version of her sniper fire tale:

One of the great honors of being First Lady and of being a senator is the time that I was privileged to spend with our troops here at home, in Iraq and Afghanistan, in Bosnia, Kosovo, and places around the world. I remember particularly a trip to Bosnia where the welcoming ceremony had to be moved inside because of sniper fire.

This can't be explained away as a "minor blip" or a simple "misstatement."

What we're seeing is a deliberate pattern, and voters deserve a thorough and convincing explanation of what exactly was going through Hillary Clinton's mind.

Until she offers a thorough answer, the questions will continue to mount.

Did she know her statements were false? If she had a false memory, why didn't the people around her who knew the truth tell her? What does that say about the type of presidency she would lead?

You know, I think that, a minor blip, you know, if I said something that, you know, I say a lot of things -- millions of words a day -- so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement.
-- Hillary Clinton's "explanation" of her false tale

Hillary Clinton made false claims about her trip to Bosnia not just once, but several times -- in at least three different months. That's not misspeaking, it's not an accident. It's a deliberate pattern. Let's review:

Jan. 2, 2008: HRC tells Vieira she was first American in post-war Bosnia

Bill Clinton was in Tuzla two months before his wife, on Jan. 13, 1996

2. February 29: Clinton said that during her trip to Bosnia the welcoming ceremony "had to be moved inside because of sniper fire," a claim we now know to be false.

3. March 17 speech: Clinton repeated the Bosnian sniper fire tale, throwing in some additional detail about running from the plane to the cars -- another false claim.

4. March 17 press availability: Clinton stood by her version story, even when pressed by reporters.

5. Also on March 17: Clinton twice used former Army Secretary Togo West to defend her version of events, first in the introduction to her speech and then during her press availability.

I don't know how anyone could look at that and say Clinton's excuse adequately addresses the reality of what happened. On multiple occasions during a three-month span, she made similar false claims about the same event -- and it's possible she made others of which we are unaware.

It's clear that her statements were deliberate, and her use of both Togo West and Lissa Muscatine as third-party validation of her version of events underscores that point.

That does not mean, however, she lied. It's possible that she essentially imagined a different version of events. She may have convinced herself her story was true and created a false memory.

At this point, one can only speculate what real story is. But it's absolutely clear that Clinton's spin yesterday about misspeaking was inadequate.

This is an important issue because it goes straight to the question of foreign policy experience and judgment that she claims to have in such abundance.

If she was lying, why was she lying? If she believed something to be true that was in fact false, did anybody around her try to refresh her memory? Both Togo West and Lissa Muscatine surely knew that Clinton's claims were false.

If they did say something to Clinton, were they rebuffed?

If they didn't try to correct the record was it because they were afraid?

One thing is certain after George W. Bush -- we need a Commander-in-Chief who is firmly grounded in reality. When he or she makes a mistake, as will happen, he or she must also possess the type or personality and character that encourages subordinates to correct that mistake.

If the people around the President are afraid to speak truth to power, how will we ever get out of Iraq without making things worse than they currently are?

And if Clinton's statement turn out to have merely been lies, do we want another President in whom we can place not trust?

We know Clinton was wrong. What we don't know is whether she was lying or imagining things that were untrue. And isn't that the story of the Bush Presidency?

What if Osama bin Laden publicly endorsed one of the central tenets of Barack Obama's candidacy?

What if this statement was made while Barack Obama was overseas?

What Barack Obama embraced that endorsement, and offered it as proof that his foreign policy views were right for the country?

What would the media say? Would they ignore it? Quote it approvingly? Or would they spend the next week endlessly looping video footage of bin Laden and Obama, joined at the hip?

What if John McCain did the same thing?

Well, as rawstory reports, it happened. Here's what McCain said:

As you probably know, an audiotape ... was released where bin Laden said, and I have to quote bin Laden: "The nearest field of jihad today to support our people in Palestine ... is the Iraqi field."

He urged Palestinians and people of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Saudi Arabia to help in support of their mujahideen brothers in Iraq which is the greatest opportunity and the biggest task.

Now, my friends, for the first time, I have seen Osama bin Laden and Gen. Petraeus in agreement, and that is, the central battleground in the battle against al-Qaeda is in Iraq today!

That's what bin Laden is saying, and that's what General Petraeus is saying, and that's what I'm saying, my friends.

My Democrat [sic] opponents, who want to pull out of Iraq, refuse to understand what's being said and what's happening, and that is, the central battleground is Iraq in this struggle against radical Islamic extremism.

So now John McCain is treating Osama bin Laden's words with more respect than the words of his Democratic colleagues. (Actually, he's treating Osama bin Laden with more respect, correctly pronouncing bin Laden's name while mispronouncing the proper noun Democratic -- and emphasizing that they are his opponents, rather than fellow Americans.)

Can you imagine if it had been Obama instead of McCain?

I've created a Hillary in Tuzla Video Archive Gallery of all the major video clips I can think of related to the Hillary in Tuzla tale.

At the gallery, you can see full-length videos from which the various news reports and web ads have been created.

I can't promise it is 100% comprehensive, but I can add new videos to it, so if you notice something missing or see something new, drop a comment in this post or on the pod itself, or just e-mail me.

Al Giordano:

False Claims of Combat Experience Normally Lead to Resignations

Americans – particularly combat veterans and their family members – are understandably very sensitive to false claims of combat experience by those that did not share those experiences.

Giordano goes on to cite the experiences of U.S. Rep. Wes Cooley, Toronto Blue Jays Manager Tim Johnson, and several others -- all of whom either resigned or were fired after making false claims about their military service.

What are the chances that Hillary Clinton will be held to the same standard?

(You'll notice his post also says some nice things about my video -- I promise, that's not why I'm linking over there!)

Reader TP writes:

Devastating

This quote from Hillary:

"I was also told that the greeting ceremony had been moved away from the tarmac but that there was this 8-year-old girl and, I can't, I can't rush by her, I've got to at least greet her -- so I made a -- I took her stuff and then I left"

She's saying she ran away from an 8 year old girl in danger to protect herself.

It is just a devastating quote.

I can't wait to see what they do with The Tale of the Bosnian Sniper.

"It makes the case for Senator Obama that all this experience that she's been talking about is at least partly her imagination." -- Politico's Mike Allen

The quote comes from this definitive report by CBS Evening News:

"Now let me tell you what I can remember, OK -- because what I was told was that we had to land a certain way and move quickly because of the threat of sniper fire. So I misspoke -- I didn't say that in my book or other times but if I said something that made it seem as though there was actual fire -- that's not what I was told. I was told we had to land a certain way, we had to have our bulletproof stuff on because of the threat of sniper fire. I was also told that the greeting ceremony had been moved away from the tarmac

From the CBS News
front page

but that there was this 8-year-old girl and, I can't, I can't rush by her, I've got to at least greet her -- so I made a -- I took her stuff and then I left, Now that's my memory of it.

Bunch asked her if this story damaged her credibility on foreign policy:

"No, I went to 80 countries, you know. I gave contemporaneous accounts, I wrote about a lot of this in my book. you know, I think that, a minor blip, you know, if I said something that, you know, I say a lot of things -- millions of words a day -- so if I misspoke, that was just a mistatement."

Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News, the CBS correspondent who reported on then-First Lady Hillary Clinton's trip to Tuzla, Bosnia reports today:

Not The Safest Trip, But No Sniper Fire

[snip]

In reality, we had no known incidents of enemy fire on our aircraft. Mindful of the fact that we were with the First Lady, and that she was venturing farther inside Bosnia than her husband the President had ever gone, reporters kept a close eye to the crowds and never entirely went off-guard.

However, the mood upon first landing at the Tuzla airport was light. Children were there on the tarmac to greet the first lady, Chelsea was by her side, Bosnian dignitaries had gathered: It felt safe.

Emphasis added.

Articles:

ABC News: Clinton Bosnia Account Comes Under Fire

Washington Post: More Incoming Fire For Clinton

Associated Press: Clinton 'misspoke' on Bosnia trip

NY Observer: Wolfson: Clinton 'Misspoke' In Her Tuzla Account

NY Times: Clinton ‘Misspoke’ About Bosnia Trip, Campaign Says

Video:

CNN's Jack Cafferty: "Why would Hillary Clinton not tell the truth about her trip to Bosnia?"

MSNBC: Truth Squad Debunks Clinton's False Claims

ABC News Senior Correspondent Claire Shipman: Sniper fire claim will "get her into trouble"

Howard Wolfson, Clinton's PR flack, now says she "misspoke" when claiming to have been under enemy sniper fire in Tuzla, Bosnia.

Bluntly: that's bull. Misspeaking is the act of saying something other than what you meant.

On at least two different occasions -- one of them after being pressed by a reporter on her recollection, given Sinbad's different point of view -- Clinton deliberately said that there was no greeting ceremony due to the dangerous conditions and that she was rushed from the plane to waiting vehicles.

1. This wasn't a just a simple slip of the tongue. Her initial speech and subsequent discussions with reporters clearly reflect an effort to make her mission seem dangerous.

2. She repeated her remarks, even when challenged by the media (and Sinbad).

3. In defending her tale, she arranged for third-party validation from both Togo West, the Clinton Administration Secretary of the Army, and Lissa Muscatine, a Clinton speechwriter.

Only after video emerged disproving her assertions and threatening a political firestorm did she start trying to pass her false claim off as simply "misspeaking."

Watch for yourself:

Hillary Clinton's campaign has released photographic evidence of the sniper from the trip she took to Tuzla with her daughter, Sinbad, and Sheryl Crow:

I don't know the story behind that photo, but it's brilliant. I've seen it before on Obsidian Wings and today saw it posted at Democratic Underground by Ichingcarpenter.

No Response From Clinton

By Julie Bosman

When two more Democratic debates were announced this month, both Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama quickly accepted the invitation to meet in Pennsylvania on April 16.

But Mrs. Clinton, unlike Mr. Obama, has not yet agreed to participate in a North Carolina debate on April 19.

That debate, sponsored by CBS News, would be the first opportunity for Katie Couric to perform hosting duties. And if it happens, it will highlight the importance of North Carolina, whose primary will be held May 6. Mr. Obama is favored to win there.

I wonder if Clinton doesn't want to debate in North Carolina in order to maintain some wiggle room to to drop out of the race after Pennsylvania. After all, her campaign isn't just broke, it's in debt, and she must know that if she doesn't win at least 60% of Pennsylvania's pledged delegates, she's got no shot at the nomination. (In fact, she likely needs closer to 70%, but 60% would probably keep her in the game.)

Probably just wishful thinking on my part...

Side note: Couric would be the third woman to moderate a televised debate this year -- Campbell Brown and the Editor in Chief of the Des Moines Register being the other two. I think that Couric would be just the second woman to moderate one of the debates this year. (The Editor in Chief of the Des Moines Register being the other.)

Perhaps we can just start calling it "The Speech," as Frank Rich does in his NYT column today. In less than 24 hours, more than one million watched on YouTube. Now, we're closing in on 4 million. (This also includes the higher-resolution full-length speech.)

That means Obama's speech has been seen more times online than the original Wright clip -- by a factor of six. More people have have watched Obama's speech online than have watched every single clip on McCain's YouTube channel -- for the entire campaign.

It's just another confirmation of the fact that most Americans are more than satisfied with Barack Obama's approach towards racial reconciliation.

It's an unbelievable tale of heroism, written and directed by Mark J. Penn.

The Baltimore Sun calls it a "whopper."

"Four Pinocchios!" says the Washington Post.

"Requires enormous suspension of disbelief" raves the Huffington Post.

::

The Jed Report is pleased to release the trailer for "Hillary in Tuzla" to the public.

Please enjoy it at your own risk, and spread it wide and far.

Her false claim that she was a NAFTA critic from the beginning -- a false claim that was central to her victory in Ohio -- is also going to be a huge.

Let's be clear: if Hillary Clinton somehow gets the nomination, John McCain will use her lie against her; she won't be able to claim opposition to NAFTA like she did during the Democratic primary.

You should never say never, but she's got almost no chance to win Ohio. Sure, she does decently in polls now. But come November, after voters there learn the full story about Hillary Clinton and NAFTA, it probably won't even be close.

Here's the Digg It link for the NAFTA video.