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Opinion: Ticket Replay: New video shows Clinton’s escape from Bosnian snipers

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This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

From time to time these next couple of weeks, The Ticket will republish some of our favorites from the 4,000 items posted here since June 11, 2007. This one was first published here on March 27, 2008:

It’s our policy here at The Ticket to admit when we make a mistake. And, boy, did we make a doozie the other day when we reported that CBS News videos contradicted Sen. Hillary Clinton’s hair-raising account of her bullet-riddled arrival in Bosnia in 1996.

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In numerous speeches during this campaign season she has described her party making a harrowing landing on the embattled airfield. Passengers, she recalled, were forced to run with their heads down for the safety of nearby vehicles, which apparently had to be kept a safe distance away in order for people to have to heroically run to them. ‘That is what happened,’ candidate Clinton said emphatically.

The news video, which we included in our Ticket item and you should probably review again here, to see how seemingly real film can be doctored so seamlessly, appeared to show the First Lady and her daughter Chelsea calmly walking across the tarmac at Tuzla Air Base, greeting a little girl reading a poem and bravely visiting with American troops near the front lines of that ethnic strife.

WARNING: Some of this war footage is graphic and may be disturbing to some readers.

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Some cynics suggested Clinton was exaggerating the danger and importance of her travels in order to bulk up her credentials of experience to be able to answer the White House phone at 3 a.m. And last night Jay Leno joked that Clinton was supposed to be his guest, but she got pinned down by sniper fire and couldn’t make it.

But now we know that peaceful video, which also showed Sinbad trying to be funny in the face of imminent death and Sheryl Crow fearlessly strumming a guitar, had to have been doctored to mask the gunfire and excise the bloody carnage surrounding the brave Mrs. Clinton.

The Ticket has now obtained two videos of the actual visit -- one just above here and another awaiting after you click the Read more line down below.

These film clips obviously show the real wartime conditions that the future Democratic presidential candidate endured on her road toward the nomination. And you have to hand it to the one-time Cubs-now-forever Yankees fan. Not once, does she flinch amid the explosions.

View second video below by clicking on the ‘Read more’ line below.

--Andrew Malcolm

Even with sniper-fire, you can receive cellphone alerts on each new Ticket item; just register here. RSS feeds are also available here. And Amazon has Ticket Kindle feeds as well.

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Now, here’s another taped version of the same 1996 visit to Bosnia with the actual sound of gunfire. How the Secret Service allowed a First Lady to go into such a dangerous place, we’ll never know. But we’re certain Rep. Henry Waxman will conduct a full televised investigation as soon as he can find a Republican involved.

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