A "Hail Mary" for Hillary

In a desperate attempt to rescue Hillary from her lies that she was “under fire” when she landed in Bosnia, in a San Francisco Chronicle opinion piece, “Bosnia in March 1996 was a war zone,” by Richard Rapaport, March 26, 2008, the writer concludes that: “It is thus silly and degrading to argue about the inherent dangers of traveling to Bosnia in March 1996. As well protected as she was, Hillary Clinton did take risks to go there.”

All well and good, Mr. Rapaport, but that’s not what Hillary said. She reported in vivid detail things that did not happen and repeated instructions she was not given. No one said that there was no danger. There is inherent danger in flying. There is less danger if you’re flying in an aircraft provided, maintained, and protected by the U. S. Air Force expressly for the transport of the First Lady and First Daughter, and flying into an area that had been “sanitized” by the U. S. Army for weeks before Hillary’s arrival. Mr. Rapaport related his experiences flying into the same part of Bosnia ten days earlier, and he obviously didn’t find the same circumstances then that Hillary did later.

However, Hillary didn’t accurately report what happened on her arrival, she embellished the story, and was found out by CBS News, not exactly a bastion of the “great right-wing conspiracy.” The fact that there were glaring discrepancies between what she reported and what others experienced is newsworthy, regardless of Mr. Rapaport’s admiration for Hillary and her husband.

The old adage: “When in doubt whether the reporters will remember, tell the truth,” has been a problem for Bill and Hillary for a long time, and it looks like nothing has changed.