From her undying fans at the Associated Press:

Clinton rules out leaving race early

By BETH FOUHY, Associated Press Writer Sat Mar 29

HAMMOND, Ind. – If Hillary Rodham Clinton is feeling heat from pundits and party elders to quit the race and back Barack Obama, you’d never know it from her crowds, energy level and upbeat demeanor on the campaign trail.

"There are millions of reasons to continue this race: people in Pennsylvania, Indiana and North Carolina, and all of the contests yet to come," Clinton told reporters Friday. "This is a very close race and clearly I believe strongly that everyone should have their voices heard and their votes counted." …

"I believe a spirited contest is good for the Democratic Party and will strengthen the eventual nominee," she said. "We will have a united party behind whomever that nominee is. … I look forward to campaigning over the next several months." …

At events here and in North Carolina on Thursday, Clinton raised the issue of whether she should quit the race, only to have it firmly batted down by her supporters.

"There are some people who are saying, you know, we really ought to end this primary, we just ought to shut it down," she said in Mishawaka, Ind., drawing cries of "No, no!" inside a packed gymnasium.

In Hammond, she compared the state’s struggling steel industry to her own efforts to fight the odds.

"I know a little bit about comebacks," she said to cheers. "I know what it’s like to be counted down and counted out. But I also know there is nothing that will keep us down if we are determined to keep on." …

The New York senator reaffirmed her belief that superdelegates will base their choice on which candidate would make the best president and would have the best chance to beat Republican John McCain in November.

All the more reason to look forward to Pennsylvania’s primary April 22, Indiana and North Carolina’s May 6 and the handful of others that follow, Clinton insisted.

"There will be additional information that will inform those decisions that will come from these upcoming contests," she said…

Should we be shouting "go, Hillary go!" or "stay, Hillary, stay!"?

Personally, I still think we should have driven the stake through her heart while we had the chance.

I have just received this great news from David Allender:

Lance Cpl. Stephen B. Tatum, left, heads to his arraignment with attorney Jack Zimmerman Tuesday, November 13, 2007 at Camp Pendleton.

From: XXXXXX
To: XXXXXXX

Subject: LCpl Stephen Tatum
Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2008 13:06:03 -0500

All charges were dismissed with prejudice against LCpl Tatum this morning, on the day his trial was to begin on allegations stemming from actions in Haditha, Iraq on 19 November 2005.  The government said it was done to further the truth seeking function.  We emphasize that LCpl Tatum will testify truthfully if called as a witness but there is no deal for his testimony.  It became clear to the experienced prosecution team that the right thing to do was to dismiss all charges against LCpl Tatum.  We believe the evidence shows that LCpl Tatum reacted to an enemy attack the way he was trained to do.

This result is consistent with the recommendation of the Article 32 investigating officer who recommended last summer that no court-martial be held in this case.

JACK B. ZIMMERMANN
KYLE R. SAMPSON
LTCOL MATTHEW W. CORD, USMCR
MAJ JEFFREY V. MUÑOZ, USMC

More good news for the forces of justice and freedom.

From a determined Reuters:

Consumers, inflation weaken as slowdown drags on

By Burton Frierson

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Consumer confidence fell further into recessionary territory in March, hitting a 16-year low, even as other data showed incomes rose and inflation dipped in February, which should support the Fed’s efforts to bolster the economy.

The Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers said its final index of confidence fell to 69.5 in March — its lowest since February 1992, when it was at 68.8 — from the previous month’s reading of 70.8.

Consumers were apparently unimpressed by February’s 0.5 percent rise in personal incomes, reported by the Commerce Department. That exceeded forecasts of a 0.3 percent gain made by analysts polled before the release.

However, the best news from the U.S. personal income report may have been the benign reading on underlying inflation, which was 2 percent. This matched the prior month’s gain, which was downwardly revised from 2.2 percent.

This latest reading on the "core" personal consumption expenditure price index is also just within the Federal Reserve’s perceived comfort zone…

The inflation reading provided a boost to Wall Street with the Dow Jones industrial average rising 0.4 percent. It also helped lift bond prices but pushed the dollar to near a record low around $1.58 per euro…

The Commerce Department’s report also showed signs of economic weakness, with personal spending increasing just 0.1 percent in February. This was in line with expectations but is down from a 0.4 percent gain in January.

This weakness was consistent with the Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers report, which said "it is now nearly unanimous among consumers that the economy has already entered a recession."

Its index of consumer expectations fell to 60.1, its lowest since January 1992, when it was at 59.1. In February this year it was at 62.4.

The report showed the final reading on one-year inflation expectations jumped to 4.3 percent in March from 3.6 percent in February.

That was the highest final reading since October 2005, when gasoline prices were soaring in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, but was down from the preliminary March reading of 4.5 percent.

Excluding the post-Katrina period, the March reading would be the highest since 1990.

The index of consumers’ economic outlook for the next 12 months fell to 46 — the lowest since a similar reading in January 1991 — from 54 in February.

"Consumer confidence slipped due to growing concerns about weakening prospects for the economy as well as anticipated increases in unemployment and inflation during the year ahead," the Reuters/University of Michigan statement said…

What a coincidence.

16 years ago was also an election year. In fact, it was the year that ended up giving us Mr. Clinton as our President.

And as he and his lickspittle slaveys in the media constantly told us, "it’s the economy, stupid." Without mentioning that in fact the economy had rebounded long before the November elections.

This weakness was consistent with the Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers report, which said "it is now nearly unanimous among consumers that the economy has already entered a recession."

Gee, where did these consumers ever get that idea? Could it be from the endlessly disinformation from the news media?

But alas, the Democrats and our watchdog media (but I repeat myself) always repeat whatever lie has worked for them before.

From the New York Sun:

Enlarge

Accused Saddam Agent Says He Met With Hillary at White House

IRAQI’S MEETING WAS IN WHITE HOUSE IN 1996, HE CLAIMS
By IRA STOLL, STAFF REPORTER OF THE SUN | March 27, 2008

A Michigan man facing federal criminal charges of illegally working for Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi Intelligence Service says he met with Hillary Clinton at the White House in May 1996.

In a 1997 interview with this reporter, Muthanna Hanooti said that at the meeting, Mrs. Clinton was "very receptive" to his request for an easing of the American sanctions on Iraq that were in place at the time. He said Mrs. Clinton "passed a message to the State Department" about the need to implement the oil-for-food deal, which was intended to allow Saddam to sell billions of dollars’ worth of oil to pay for food for Iraqi citizens.

Back in 1997, a spokesman for the first lady referred inquiries about the meeting to the National Security Council. At the time, a spokesman for the National Security Council, Eric Rubin, responded by saying that President Clinton, not the first lady, sets foreign policy.

Asked whether Senator Clinton recalls the meeting or whether the presidential campaign had any further comment on the meeting in light of Mr. Hanooti’s indictment, the Clinton presidential campaign yesterday offered no formal response.

White House schedules for Mrs. Clinton that were released earlier this month by the National Archives show a May 9, 1996, "Private Meeting w/ Congressman Bonior and Chaldean-Americans" in the Map Room. David Bonior, who was a member of the Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives until he stepped down in January 2003, backed Mr. Hanooti’s efforts to ease the American blockade of Baathist Iraq. Mr. Bonior has been back in the news this week for having been one of the congressmen on an October 2002 trip to Iraq that Mr. Hanooti organized and that, apparently unbeknownst to the congressmen, was paid for by Saddam’s government. Chaldeans are Iraqi Christians…

Mrs. Clinton and her defenders may claim that no one could have known in 1996 that Mr. Hanooti would become an agent of Saddam Hussein, engaged in what a grand jury and federal prosecutors say was a criminal conspiracy. The indictment charges that the conspiracy began "in or about 1999." Mr. Hanooti has pleaded not guilty.

But to reporters on the foreign policy beat in Washington at the time and to those active in the Iraqi opposition to Saddam, it was clear whose agenda was being advanced. The news article in 1997, published in the Forward, that described Mrs. Clinton’s involvement with Mr. Hanooti began: "The American-led blockade of Iraq is crumbling, following an intensive, domestic lobbying effort that has involved Rep. David Bonior and Senator Abraham — and, according to some sources, Hillary Rodham Clinton."

In the October 1997 interview, Mr. Hanooti identified himself as a Palestinian and said he had recently visited Iraq. He also said he had recently met with America’s U.N. ambassador, Bill Richardson, to make the case against U.N. sanctions on Iraq.

"Of course we want the sanctions to be lifted, because we don’t believe in it," Mr. Hanooti said. He added that the sanctions hurt the Iraqi people but do not affect the Iraqi regime.

When a reporter identified the Forward as a Jewish newspaper, Mr. Hanooti said, "It is interesting that our cousins are interested in this issue. We believe that part of the problem we have is their lobbying against lifting the sanctions."

Mr. Hanooti described the impact of the sanctions on Iraqis as "another Holocaust, like the one which happened to the Jews." He claimed that 1 million Iraqi children have died because of the lack of food and medical supplies there, and he said had raised the matter in the May 1996 meeting at the White House with Mrs. Clinton…

Is this supposed to be a surprise?

The Clintons are a flame for moths like this.

(Indeed, our own Petra uncovered the story featuring photos of Mr. Hanooti with Mrs. Clinton and others within minutes of his emergence on the news scene.)

From our friends at Fox News:

Obama’s Former Pastor Getting $1.6M Home in Retirement

by FOXNews.com

Thursday, March 27, 2008

By Jeff Goldblatt

This was supposed to be the week that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. returned to the pulpit to preach for the first time since his anti-American sermons generated nationwide outrage and drew condemnation from his longtime parishioner, Barack Obama.

But, citing security concerns, Wright canceled his speaking engagements in Florida and Texas. A spokeswoman at his former church in Chicago said his schedule is pending.

A two-week FOX News investigation, however, has uncovered where Wright will be spending a good deal of his time in retirement, and it is a far cry from the impoverished Chicago streets where the preacher led his ministry for 36 years.

FOX News has uncovered documents that indicate Wright is about to move to a 10,340-square-foot, four-bedroom home in suburban Chicago, currently under construction in a gated community…

According to documents obtained from the Cook County Register of Deeds, Wright purchased two empty lots in Tinley Park, Ill., from Chicago restaurant chain owner Kenny Lewis for $345,000 in 2004.

Documents show Wright sold the property to his church, Trinity United, in December 2006, with the proceeds going to a living trust shared with his wife, Ramah.

The sale price for the land was just under $308,000, about $40,000 less than Wright’s original purchase two years earlier.

Public records of the sale show Trinity initially obtained a $10 million bank loan to purchase the property and build a new house on the land.

But further investigation with tax and real estate attorneys showed that the church had actually secured a $1.6 million mortgage for the home purchase, and attached a $10 million line of credit, for reasons unspecified in the paperwork.

There is apparently nothing wrong with that, according to non-profit tax expert Jack Siegel of Charity Governance Consulting, who examined public documents FOX News obtained from the Cook County Register of Deeds and the Village of Tinley Park.

“At least looking at it from a public document standpoint, there’s clearly not a problem that jumps out or some sort of wrongdoing,” Siegel said.

Siegel characterizes the transaction as unusual, however, because of the way Wright sold the property to Trinity and the way the deal was financed, with the attached $10 million line of credit.

Because churches are classified as private businesses, Trinity isn’t required to reveal its intended use for the line of credit. Nor, because it’s a non-profit entity, is it required to provide that information to the IRS…

“This is about how these kinds of churches work,” notes Walsh. “These pastors who made big successful churches are real valuable commodities. Is it morally wrong? Well, Protestants don’t have the idea that their religious leaders should live modestly or aesthetically. We’re not talking Buddhist monks or Catholic priests here. There’s no tradition that says they have to live poor.” …

Still more proof that Mr. Wright is just a Farrakhan wannabe.

There’s no tradition that says they have to live poor.”

Oh, really?

Well, it’s not like this weird cult has anything to do with Christianity.

From The Hill:

Ex-congressman disputes Clinton boasts on medical leave legislation

By Sam Youngman
Posted: 03/27/08

The former congressman who shepherded the Family and Medical Leave Act through Congress sought Thursday to debunk Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) claim to the legislation, saying she “never had anything to do with it.”

Former Rep. William Lacy Clay, Sr. (D-Mo.) is circulating an email disputing Clinton’s claim that the law is one of her more meaningful domestic accomplishments. The presidential candidate says she helped lobby for the bill’s passage and signing in 1993.

But Clay, who was joined by Senate sponsor Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), said the bill had already passed by large margins when it passed in 1990 and 1992 before it was vetoed on both occasions by former President George H.W. Bush.

“All we needed was a president to sign it,” Clay said. “The president signed it, and we’re grateful for that but there was no lobbying by him or her.”

The Hill has obtained a copy of the Clay email rejecting Clinton’s claims to have been instrumental in bill’s becoming law. The former congressman writes, “If Hillary played a role in its passage, it was without my knowledge.”

Clay conceded that Clinton might have helped Dodd in the Senate, but given the large margins by which the bill had passed before, Clay said Dodd “just wouldn’t need” the help. Dodd could not be reached for comment.

“She never had anything to with it,” Clay said. “I just don’t think you ought to play games with that kind of stuff.” …

In her memoirs, Clinton remembered discussing the act during her speech at the Democratic nominating convention in 1992…

Mrs. Clinton lied about her accomplishments? Even lying in her ghostwritten autobiography?

How shocking.

From ABC’s The View (via YouTube) and the Associated Press:

Obama would have left if Wright stayed

WASHINGTON – White House hopeful Barack Obama suggests he would have left his Chicago church had his longtime pastor, whose fiery anti-American comments about U.S. foreign policy and race relations threatened Obama’s campaign, not stepped down.

"Had the reverend not retired, and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people and were inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country, for all its flaws, then I wouldn’t have felt comfortable staying at the church," Obama said Thursday during a taping of the ABC talk show, "The View." The interview will be broadcast Friday…

Obama said Wednesday he has spoken with Wright, who retired from Trinity United Church of Christ last month but remains as a senior pastor.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama’s rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, broke her silence on the matter Tuesday, saying she would have parted company with a pastor who spoke about the country the way Wright has…

Er, Mr. Wright has only (abruptly) announced his intention to retire at the end of May 2008. He has not yet retired.

But never mind such petty details.

It’s fun to watch Mr. Obama’s fabled judgment at work.

From a site calling itself The Investigative Project on Terrorism:

Exclusive Photos Show Al-Hanooti’s Political Clout

by Steven Emerson
IPT News
March 27, 2008

Larger copies of some of these images can be seen at the bottom of this story.

Before he was alleged to have become a spy for Saddam Hussein’s regime, Muthanna Al-Hanooti’s charity work and political activism provided him with access to the highest echelons of government.

Newsletters collected by the Investigative Project on Terrorism, some published now for the first time, show Al-Hanooti photographed with dignitaries ranging from First Lady Hillary Clinton in 1996 and Vice President Al Gore along with significant members of Congress.

That may explain why Iraqi intelligence agents had confidence that Al-Hanooti would be able to persuade Congress to lift economic sanctions against Iraq. A federal indictment unsealed Wednesday accuses him of using his work with the Michigan-based Life for Relief and Development (LIFE), formerly known as the International Relief Association, Inc., to become an Iraqi agent.

According to the indictment, Al-Hanooti drafted a plan to undermine the sanctions for the Iraqis, listing members of Congress who would support the move. He then led tours to Iraq, indirectly funded by the Iraqi government, with congressional leaders including Democrats David Bonior of Michigan, Jim McDermott of Washington and Mike Thompson of California.

LIFE issued a statement in advance of a 2002 trip, saying it was designed to help the representatives "gain a better understanding of the humanitarian plight faced by innocent Iraqi civilians still suffering from the destruction caused by the 1991 Gulf War and the continuation of the 12-year embargo." Photos of the junket in question were included in a 2003 newsletter published by an organization called Focus on American & Arab Interests & Relations (FAAIR), of which Al-Hanooti was President.

Photograph taken from Spring 2003 FAAIR Newsletter.

According to the indictment, an intermediary for the Iraqis gave Al-Hanooti $24,000 in September 2002 to cover trip expenses, the indictment alleges. The next month, Al-Hanooti received $10,000 more. The indictment also claims he also was given the right to buy 2 million barrels of oil under Iraq’s Oil for Food program.

FBI agents interviewed Al-Hanooti a year ago. He denied knowingly meeting with any Iraqi intelligence officials and denied being offered the oil contract. That led to three counts in the indictment of providing false statements to federal agents.

The alleged conspiracy began in 1999, the year Al-Hanooti went to work for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and continued through March 2003 – covering the entire period of time he worked for CAIR.

A CAIR press release from June 2000 announced the opening of the organization’s Michigan office and identified Al-Hanooti as its executive director, and he is similarly identified on CAIR’s federal tax records from 2000. Michigan corporate records in 2000 also list Al-Hanooti as CAIR-Michigan’s registered agent.

In previous cases in which other CAIR officials have been indicted or convicted, CAIR has tried to distance itself from the controversy, issuing statements, often false, claiming that the alleged crimes did not take place while the individual was employed with CAIR.

CAIR is not mentioned in the indictment. Rather, it focuses on Al-Hanooti’s work with LIFE, a Muslim charity that operates in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, and the Palestinian territories.

Dawud Walid, CAIR Michigan’s current executive director, told the Detroit News that his group "will be closely monitoring to make sure he has his rights afforded to him and that he receives due process. He is innocent until proven guilty."

Al-Hanooti’s political clout remained intact. The spring 2005 LIFE newsletter showed him with political heavyweights ranging from Syrian dictator Bashar Assad to Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm.

Muthanna Al-Hanooti with First Lady Hillary Clinton in 1996. Taken from the International Relief Monitor Newsletter.

Al-Hanooti with Vice President Al Gore in an undated photo taken from a LIFE newsletter.

U.S. Reps. Mike Thompson (CA), Jim McDermott (WA) and David Bonior (MI) in Basra in 2002. Taken from Spring 2003 FAAIR Newsletter.

Al-Hanooti with Syrian President Bashar Assad in 2005. Taken from Spring 2005 LIFE Link Newsletter

Taken from Spring 2003 FAAIR Newsletter

Mrs. Clinton looks very fetching in that photo. One can almost hear her sigh, "well, I am photographed with so many people…"

And what a shock it is to see that Mr. Hanooti was (or is) also an agent for CAIR.

Mr. Conyers involvement is also quite a surprise.

(Major kudos to IPT and our own Petra for the heads up.)

Via LiveLeak:

Fitna the Movie: Geert Wilders’ film about the Quran

Here is more info from Wikipedia about Geert Wilders, if he is unfamiliar.

And here is more info about his movie, Fitna.

(Thanks to Lucianne for the heads up.)

From a shocked Associated Press:

Feds: Saddam financed lawmakers’ trip

WASHINGTON (AP) — Saddam Hussein’s intelligence agency secretly financed a trip to Iraq for three U.S. lawmakers during the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.

The three anti-war Democrats made the trip in October 2002, while the Bush administration was trying to persuade Congress to authorize military action against Iraq. While traveling, they called for a diplomatic solution.

Prosecutors say that trip was arranged by Muthanna Al-Hanooti, a Michigan charity official, who was charged Wednesday with setting up the junket at the behest of Saddam’s regime. Iraqi intelligence officials allegedly paid for the trip through an intermediary and rewarded Al-Hanooti with 2 million barrels of Iraqi oil.

The lawmakers are not named in the indictment but the dates correspond to a trip by Democratic Reps. Jim McDermott of Washington, David Bonior of Michigan and Mike Thompson of California. None was charged and Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said investigators "have no information whatsoever" any of them knew the trip was underwritten by Saddam.

"Obviously, we didn’t know it at the time," McDermott spokesman Michael DeCesare said Wednesday. "The trip was to see the plight of the Iraqi children. That’s the only reason we went."

Both McDermott and Thompson are popular among liberal voters in their reliably Democratic districts for their anti-war views. Bonior is no longer in Congress…

Oklahoma Sen. Don Nickles, then the second-ranking Senate Republican, said the Democrats "sound somewhat like spokespersons for the Iraqi government." Seattle-area conservatives dubbed McDermott "Baghdad Jim" for the Iraq trip…

Al-Hanooti was arrested Tuesday night while returning to the U.S. from the Middle East, where he was looking for a job, his attorney, James Thomas, said. Al-Hanooti pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges of conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, illegally purchasing Iraqi oil and lying to authorities. He was being held on $100,000 bail.

Between 1999 and 2006, he worked on and off as a public relations coordinator for Life for Relief and Development, a charity formed after the first Gulf War to fund humanitarian work in Iraq. FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force agents raided the charity’s headquarters in 2006 but charged nobody and allowed the agency to continue operating.

McDermott identified that charity as the group financing the Iraq trip. In House disclosure forms, he put the cost at $5,510. Thompson also understood the charity to be financing the trip, spokeswoman Anne Warden said.

Prosecutors said Al-Hanooti was responsible for monitoring Congress for the Iraqi Intelligence Service. From 1999 to 2002, he allegedly provided Saddam’s government with a list of U.S. lawmakers he believed favored lifting economic sanctions against Iraq…

Gee, what a stunning revelation. Top Democrats (aka useful idiots) were colluding with our country’s enemies.

Of course this outrageous scandal will cost the Democrats the White House and Congress in the next elections.

(Isn’t it fun to pretend we live in a just and rational world now and then?)

The inimitable New York Post continues to take Mrs. Clinton to the woodshed.

First whack:

TALL TALE PLANE NUTS: PILOT

By CARL CAMPANILE

March 27, 2008 — The pilot who flew Hillary Rodham Clinton into Bosnia shot down her fairy tale of facing sniper fire during her visit there as first lady in 1996 – saying the trip was so safe that "not only were there no bullets flying around, there wasn’t a bumble bee flying around."

Col. William "Goose" Changose said in a radio interview that he was surprised by Clinton’s story and obliterated it.

Clinton had said the military plane used an "evasive maneuver" to escape detection, that there was no greeting ceremony on the tarmac in Tuzla, and that the visitors were told to run to cars for cover.

"Yeah, so, no evasive maneuver. OK?" Changose said on the Rusty Humphries radio show.

"I gotta tell ya, I will give it to the commander of Air Base Eagle. He had that place – you know, not only were there no bullets flying around, there wasn’t a bumble bee flying around," Changose said.

He said he noticed "tanks pointing all the way around the perimeter" with ground troops everywhere and fighter helicopters monitoring the area. Changose stressed he wouldn’t have landed the plane if there had been sniper fire.

"We wouldn’t have let her outside of the plane . . . We have contingencies for just in case of something like that . . . But the fact that we landed tells you that there’s nothing gonna happen. At least at that moment it was secure."

Second whack:

‘SHOOTER’ MARINE FUMES

By DAPHNE RETTER, Post Correspondent

March 27, 2008 — WASHINGTON – One of the Marines’ most-accomplished snipers took dead aim yesterday at Hillary Rodham Clinton’s claims of facing fire in Bosnia, saying she has dissed the real heroes.

"She doesn’t care about our service members – that’s the feeling that gives me," said retired Staff Sgt. Jack Coughlin, a 20-year Marine sniper who detailed his real-life drama in the powerful 2006 book, "Shooter: The Autobiography of the Top-Ranked Marine Sniper."

"This is not a verbal snafu. She is using us," he told The Post.

Coughlin, who once recorded 13 enemy "kills" in a single day during the Iraq war, said Clinton committed "the ultimate sin" by trumping up a frightening scenario for political gain.

"She puts it out there so she can say she’s been tested under fire – especially in the smug way she was talking about it," Coughlin said, referring to Clinton’s account of running across a military tarmac in Tuzla, Bosnia, while under sniper attack.

Clinton has said this week that she misspoke.

"So I made a mistake," she told reporters Tuesday in Pennsylvania, where she was campaigning before the state’s April 22 primary.

But Coughlin’s not buying it.

"She tried to punch her ticket in the ‘warrior club,’ like, ‘I’ve been there, done that, and I’ve got the T-shirt,’ " Coughlin said. "If you do it for political gain – that’s where you cross the line."

Now retired from the military, Coughlin recorded more than 60 "confirmed kills," and retains the record as the Marines’ top sniper, according to his book.

Coughlin said he found himself in the cross-hairs of enemy snipers "more times than I can count."

The former sniper said he finds Clinton’s memory lapse incomprehensible.

"That is something she would never forget – I still remember what gear I was using when I came under fire." …

"This has nothing to do with politics – this is just about right and wrong," Coughlin said.

"It seems like she’s just going to be thinking about ‘What makes me look better?’ not ‘What’s better for the country?’ "

And as the Marine says, this was no "verbal snafu."

In fact, Hillary first floated this lie as a stinging rebuke of Mr. Obama’s (highly accurate) claim that the FLOTUS’s foreign policy experience consisted of attending a few teas. (Which in the case of her Northern Ireland experience is literally true.)

Funny how the media continue to ignore that, and portray this as an innocent slip of the tongue.

The latest press release from the Hillary Campaign:

Hillary Clinton meeting with Belfast women in 1995 and the teapot she admired.

The Obama Record: Just Words

To: Interested Parties
From: The Clinton Campaign
Date: March 26, 2008
RE: The Obama Record: Just Words

Yesterday, a Pennsylvania editorial board asked Sen. Clinton how she would have "responded if [her] pastor had said some of the things that Rev. Wright said?" In response, she said Rev. Wright would not have been her pastor, an honest view shared by many Americans.

The Obama campaign’s response? Attack Sen. Clinton and accuse her of trying to divert attention from the Bosnia trip story and her record of foreign policy experience.

Sen. Clinton’s response was sincere. The Obama attack was disingenuous.

We are happy to discuss Sen. Clinton’s foreign policy experience and her record overall. Unfortunately, the Obama campaign doesn’t want to discuss its candidate’s record and prefers personal attacks instead.

Sen. Obama knows that if he focused on his experience, he’d get questions about the shortcomings in his record and the efforts he has made to embellish it.

He’d have to deal with the fallout from this week’s Washington Post report on his gross exaggeration of his role on immigration reform and housing policy.

Sen. Obama would have to explain why the New York Times reported that he claims credit for passing nuclear leak legislation that never got out of committee.

He’d have to confront reports from FactCheck.org and other independent organizations that say his claims of providing a universal health care plan are based on selective, embellished and out-of-context quotes from newspapers.

He’d have to discuss the LA Times story that reported on how his fellow organizers say he took too much credit for his community organizing efforts.

He’d have to explain why he regularly claims he was a law professor when in fact he held no such title.

Sen. Obama seems to think disingenuous attacks on Sen. Clinton will address the concerns voters have about his record and readiness to be the Commander-in-Chief and the steward of our economy. They won’t.

In the end, Sen. Obama’s words cannot erase Hillary’s 35-year record of action because when all is said and done, words aren’t action. They are just words.

It really is to laugh.