The Workday Liberal

The Washington Post's Fact Checker is getting added to my favorites. Today their reporter Michael Dobbs has the pictures, a link to the video, and various other facts which utterly disprove a recent tall tale by Senator Clinton about her trip to Bosnia.

Here is Senator Clinton's recollection of the visit as related in a speech less than one week ago:

"I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."

Unfortunately for Senator Clinton technology has advanced to the point that mankind can take pictures and, believe it or not, if you take a several pictures in a row and then look at them with a device which plays those pictures in rapid sequence, you get what is known today as... video. So there are pictures and video of the first lady arriving in Bosnia. Wonder of wonders, it turns out that the speech detailing the race to the armored personell carriers under a hail of gunfire which is the stuff of first lady legend is not actually a very accurate telling of the event at all.

Clinton and her party were greeted on the tarmac by smiling U.S. and Bosnian officials. An eight-year-old Moslem girl, Emina Bicakcic, read a poem in English. An Associated Press photograph of the greeting ceremony, above, shows a smiling Clinton bending down to receive a kiss.

"There is peace now," Emina told Clinton, according to Pomfret's report in the Washington Post the following day, "because Mr. Clinton signed it. All this peace. I love it."

There is peace now, because Mr. Clinton signed it! What a beautiful poem... and how out of place as the pot shots from the snipers around the airfield kicked up the dirt and the mud all around the smiling dignitaries.

Senator Clinton has claimed that the reason she went to Bosnia in the first place is to carry on the good work of President Clinton, when it was too dangerous for the President to go himself. Thank goodness that Mrs. Clinton allowed herself to be targeted rather than the leader of the free world... except that is not quite the entire truth either. President Clinton visited the very same air base two months prior to the first lady.

Let me wrap this up with yet another observation on the state of this nomination race. I used to be a huge fan of the Clintons. Just search this blog and you will find many many instances in which I have supported both of them in some manner. But this kitchen sink strategy is doing permanent harm to the Clinton legacy in the Democratic party and I am a very small piece of evidence of that damage. If the Clinton campaign insists on further attacking the putative Democratic presidential nominee, I fear the damage done to the Clinton legacy in this party will be beyond recovery. The only option left for Clinton to win this nomination at this point (having superdelegates over rule the majority of the voters and the states in the national priamary) would result in riots at the Democratic convention, unless Barack Obama held back the mob in person. Is it really worth it for Clinton to try to get the nomination under such circumstances? Is it worth it for them to go all scorched earth and completely alienate the majority of the Democratic party, even if doing so would still mean it would be a miracle for her to be nominated?

If Senator Clinton thinks it is worth it under these circumstances to continue with her self destructive campaign then I think that serves as proof in it's own right that she is not showing the necessary good judgement to be the commander in chief.