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Opinion: What I did (maybe) in the war

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It’s easy to riff on Sen. Hillary Clinton’s apparent whopper about being subjected to sniper fire in Bosnia. So let me begin, before David Letterman has a chance to taunt the candidate with, ‘Liar, liar! Pants suit on fire!’

Actually, I have a serious point to make about this gaffe. Hillary is not the first candidate (though she might be the first female candidate) to hype or fabricate combat experience. This sub-species of resumé padding has tripped up other politicians, not all of them prominent, and at least one esteemed historian.

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You don’t have to be a presidential candidate to get into this fix. Last December the Boston Globe told the familiar story of a school board candidate in Lawrence, Mass., who won election after ‘touting his 20 years in the U.S. Marine Corps,’ only to be contradicted by a family member and pilloried by other politicians.

Why do they do it? It’s true that presidents great and not-so-great have trumpeted their military service, but the most recent decorated warrior to seek the presidency didn’t seem to get much mileage from it. And straining to seem like one of the guys can backfire, as Michael Dukakis (a real veteran) discovered. Hillary would have been better advised to say that her scars came from the battle over healthcare.

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