In January, after Senator Clinton first inserted the threat of \u201csniper fire\u201d\u009d into her stump speech, Elizabeth Sullivan of The Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote that the story couldn\u2019t be true because by the time of the first lady\u2019s visit in March 1996, \u201cthe war was over.\u201d\u009d Meredith Vieira asked Mrs. Clinton on the \u201cToday\u201d\u009d show why, if she was on the front lines, she took along a U.S.O. performer like Sinbad. Earlier this month, a week before Mrs. Clinton fatefully rearmed those snipers one time too many, Sinbad himself spoke up to The Washington Post: \u201cI think the only \u201d\u02dcred phone\u2019 moment was: Do we eat here or at the next place?\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
Yet Mrs. Clinton was undeterred. She dismissed Sinbad as a \u201ccomedian\u201d\u009d and recycled her fiction once more on St. Patrick\u2019s Day. When Michael Dobbs fact-checked it for The Post last weekend and proclaimed it worthy of \u201cfour Pinocchios,\u201d\u009d her campaign pushed back. The Clinton camp enforcer Howard Wolfson phoned in to \u201cMorning Joe\u201d\u009d on MSNBC Monday and truculently quoted a sheaf of news stories that he said supported her account. Only later that day, a full week after her speech, did he start to retreat, suggesting it was \u201cpossible\u201d\u009d she \u201cmisspoke\u201d\u009d in the \u201cmost recent instance\u201d\u009d of her retelling of her excellent Bosnia adventure.<\/p>\n
Since Mrs. Clinton had told a similar story in previous instances, this was misleading at best. It was also dishonest to characterize what she had done as misspeaking \u201d\u201d or as a result of sleep deprivation, as the candidate herself would soon assert. The Bosnia anecdote was part of her prepared remarks, scripted and vetted with her staff. Not that it mattered anymore. The self-inflicted damage had been done. The debate about Barack Obama\u2019s relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright was almost smothered in the rubble of Mrs. Clinton\u2019s Bosnian bridge too far.<\/p>\n
Which brings us back to our question: Why would so smart a candidate play political Russian roulette with virtually all the bullet chambers loaded?<\/p>\n