Spin Cycle

What political purpose this serves is unclear, but Bill Clinton -- stumping in Indiana today, like Obama -- has now taken to telling the story of Hillary's trip to Bosnia, and how unfair it was that the press took her to task for saying she was shot at by snipers when she wasn't.

You can read his full account here, at ABC's Political Radar. Here's part of it -- "they" and "them" are references to the press:

"There was a lot of fulminating because Hillary, one time late at night when she was exhausted, misstated and immediately apologized for it, what happened to her in Bosnia in 1995. Did y'all see all that. Oh, they blew it up....And you woulda thought, you know, that she'd robbed a bank the way they carried on about this. And some of them when they're 60 they'll forget something when they're tired at 11:00 at night, too."

But at 3 am, she'll be wide awake?

Since the whole dispute over Bosnia was about Hillary not telling the truth, you would think that Bill would be careful with his facts when he decided to revisit the subject. But, as ABC points out, the idea of being precise and disciplined is not part of the package these days:

"His telling of the course of events wasn't quite accurate. Hillary Clinton actually made the comments numerous times, including at events on Dec. 19 and 29 in Iowa, at an event on Feb. 29 and one time -- bright and early in the morning -- on March 17.

"Sen. Clinton wasn't as quick with her apology as President Clinton may remember either. In fact, it took a week for her to eventually correct herself, first talking to the Philadelphia Inquirer editorial board on March 24 and again apologizing the next day in Greensboro, N.C."

He can make an argument that the story was overplayed while sticking with the facts. Why does he, almost instinctively, have to change them?