Clinton under fire over sniper footage

Hillary Clinton has told another whopper, and she’s been found out. Last week, during a campaign stop in Washington DC, she gave a vivid description of a dangerous trip she made in Bosnia in March 1996. At Tuzla airport, she said, "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."

But journalists and others on the trip recalled an entirely routine arrival at Tuzla. As a result, CBS dug out the footage which shows Clinton and her party – including the singer Sheryl Crow and the comedian Sinbad, there to entertain US troops - stepping calmly off the airplane and walking at a stately pace along the runway. A smiling First Lady was then met by a local eight-year-old girl who presented her with a letter.

Confronted by the CBS evidence, Clinton shrugged off her memory lapse as a "minor blip". "So I made a mistake. That happens. It shows I'm human, which for some people is a revelation."

The trouble for her campaign team is that a pattern seems to be developing. Last week, as reported by The First Post, the release of White House schedules showed that Hillary Clinton had been less than honest about her role in key foreign policy decisions during her years as First Lady - a role, she claimed, that made her more experienced than Barack Obama in international affairs. But the schedules showed that while Bill Clinton took part in peace talks in the Balkans and Belfast, Hillary was consigned to the traditional role of a First Lady, visiting children's playgrounds and taking in the sights.