Sniper fire and Middle East confusion: Bernd Debusmann

(Bernd Debusmann is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed

are his own)

By Bernd Debusmann

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - How important is experience if you want to be president of the United States? Extremely important, say Hillary Clinton and John McCain, the two presidential candidates who have been trying to outdo each other with claims of experience they say makes them fit for the job.

Both have just demonstrated that experience is no guarantee against acts of foolishness or foggy knowledge of key issues.

In the case of Mrs Clinton, eight years of life as First Lady should have taught her that if you travel with a large entourage of aides and reporters, there are extensive records of your activities. In the case of Senator McCain, decades of experience should have taught him to double-check who are the competing sides in the Iraq war, a war he wholeheartedly supports.

What happened? Mrs Clinton first. Here is how she described, in a campaign speech last week, a 1996 visit to Bosnia three months after a U.S.-brokered peace agreement had silenced the guns. "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."

That tale of danger conflicts with video of the arrival, available on youtube (http://youtube.com/watch?v=iOsGo_HWP-c) which shows her walking unhurriedly off the ramp of a military aircraft, accompanied by daughter Chelsea, smilingly greet a waiting delegation of officials and kiss a young girl. The fact checker column of the Washington Post awarded Mrs Clinton its highest "Pinocchio" rating, classed a "real whopper."

One dictionary definition of "whopper" is "an extravagant or monstrous lie" but the words "lie" or "liar" in connection with high-profile public figures are rarely used by U.S. media (as opposed to bloggers) which prefer euphemisms, such as "misstatement."