The XX Factor: Slate women blog about politics, etc...

What if Hillary Believes Her Tuzla Tale, Even Now?

John McCain keeps saying—three times and counting—that Iran is arming al-Qaida, though there is no connection we know of between the Shiite country and the Sunni terrorist group. Which is worrying as a practical matter; if national security is McCain's strong suit, and he can't keep this straight, that's way more unfortunate than a derriere-covering fib about whether he really meant we might be fighting in Iraq 100 years from now.

In much the same way, Barack Obama seems to have been protecting his backside in initially suggesting that some of his longtime preacher's more objectionable rants were news to him. He was also busted recently for claiming that he owes his very existence to the Kennedys, who at one point financially supported the program that brought his Kenyan father to the United States. When I heard Obama say that in Selma, Ala., last year, it seemed such a reach that it never even occurred to me that he meant it literally. And sure enough, by the time the Kennedys became benefactors of the program, Obama Sr. was already living in Hawaii.

As for that uninsured pregnant woman who Hillary Clinton kept saying died after she was refused medical care? Turns out she was insured and was not turned away. Now, that's credulous and predictable and incredibly bad staff work—modern parables require fact-checking, people!—but it's more embarrassing than disqualifying. As is Clinton's insistence that she spoke out against the war before Obama did in 2005. This is incorrect and hard to see as anything other than an attempt to one-up her rival. But it doesn't bother me nearly as much as the tall tale from Tuzla that she did seem to believe.

I say this because I cannot for the life of me imagine why any presidential candidate would knowingly cook up such a doozy of a drama about dodging a sniper's bullets in Bosnia—given that she was accompanied on this trip by a planeload of reporters. (Who, alas, left it to the comedian Sinbad to correct the record. But she couldn't have counted on that, could she?) No, I think she must have bought into her own imagined heroics—and might be still. Her suggestion on Leno—"This has been such a mismatch of words and actions"—that she's been in so many war zones she's lost track not only doesn't add up but makes things worse, not better. As Christopher Hitchens noted, running across a tarmac in fear for your life is not an experience anyone could ever forget. (And if it did happen elsewhere, then where?) Her Tuzla fantasy still ought to be a deal-breaker, though. Because if anything, it's even more serious if she did believe her own story -- in keeping, I'm afraid, with her whole history of improving upon the truth of her difficult childhood, her difficult marriage, and now, her difficult candidacy. Hillary has famously said that there are worse things than adultery, and there are worse things than lying, too. Like not knowing when you aren't telling the truth.