Clinton campaign says she ‘misspoke’ about Bosnia trip

Hillary Rodham Clinton “misspoke” when she asserted last week that as first lady she had landed in war-torn Bosnia under sniper fire, her campaign spokesman said Monday.

The admission capped a day of tit-for-tat between the Clinton and Barack Obama campaigns.

Also at issue were an Obama co-chairman’s comparison of former President Clinton to Cold War communist hunter Joseph R. McCarthy and a Clinton ally’s description of New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson -- who backs Obama -- as Judas.

The sparring eclipsed Clinton’s unveiling in Philadelphia of a four-point proposal to stem the nation’s housing crisis. The New York senator has sought to portray herself as a superior economist in chief and commander in chief as she battles Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination.

In calling Obama less qualified to lead a dangerous world, Clinton cites scores of foreign trips as first lady and as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. But participants are questioning her assertion that she played an important diplomatic role or put herself at risk, particularly during her March 1996 trip to Bosnia.

“I remember landing under sniper fire,” Clinton recalled during a speech last week in Washington, reading from prepared remarks. “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.”

Video footage of that trip shows a smiling Clinton and her then-teenage daughter, Chelsea, casually walking -- without helmets -- from the helicopter to an outdoor welcoming ceremony.

“On one occasion, she misspoke,” Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson said Monday in reference to her Washington speech.

In fact, Clinton also referred to having to move the Bosnia welcoming ceremony inside at least one other time, on Feb. 29.

But, Wolfson insisted, Clinton was potentially in danger. “There were reports of snipers in the hills and they were forced to cut short an event on the tarmac. That is what she wrote in her book,” he said of Clinton’s memoirs.

The Obama camp jumped on the discrepancies. “When you make a false claim that’s in your prepared remarks, it’s not misspeaking, it’s misleading, and it’s part of a troubling pattern of Sen. Clinton inflating her foreign policy experience,” Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor said.

The two campaigns also parried over comments by retired Gen. Merrill “Tony” McPeak, who last weekend compared Bill Clinton to McCarthy.

McPeak was responding to comments by Bill Clinton that critics said questioned Obama’s patriotism. In the 1950s, Sen. McCarthy decried critics of his controversial anti-communist drive as unpatriotic.

The Clinton campaign Monday included McPeak’s comment in mass e-mailings soliciting donations.

Asked how McPeak’s comment squared with Obama’s vow not to go negative, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe told reporters Monday: “I don’t think that Sen. Obama would have used that term.”

But, he added, “There has been a history of comments from former President Clinton that are always denied but most neutral observers would agree had a point to them.” Bill Clinton has come under fire in previous months for remarks about Obama that critics perceived as racially tinged.

On another controversial topic, Wolfson declined to say whether the Clinton campaign thought Democratic strategist and former Bill Clinton aide James Carville should apologize for referring to Richardson as Judas for endorsing Obama last week. Richardson had served in Bill Clinton’s Cabinet.

Carville said Monday he stood by his comment.