Hillary's Achilles Heel

Noted journalist Carl Bernstein called Clinton's recent Bosnia episode a "watershed moment" in her campaign. He argues that Clinton has never had a reputation for being honest and open; having written a biography of the senator, he suggests a pattern in her political career of bending the truth to suit her purposes. This tendency has been evident in the way she has shifted her view of certain features of the campaign to favor her current position; for example, she had accepted the DNC's decision not to count votes in Florida and Michigan until it turned out she desperately needed those votes, at which point she suddenly opposed the DNC's stance vehemently. It's one thing to spin an issue in your favor, but when you do it too much you begin to appear self-serving or disingenuous.

The Bosnia story has highlighted Clinton's deficit in the trust department. As Obama grapples with the fallout from Rev. Wright's comments, Clinton could have used his ordeal as an opportunity to close the favorability gap. Instead, she also finds herself dealing with a damaging story--but she has to defend her own character and not just that of a supporter.

As I consider the vast multitude of events, trips, and meetings that Clinton has attended over the past several years, I find it conceivable that Clinton could have embellished a story and actually begun to believe a wholly different account upon continuous reinforcement. It is plausible that she did not initially intend to deceive. However, once the discrepancy was brought to light, Clinton's subsequent explanations were unsatisfying. Frank Rich of the New York Times pieces together an excellent case for why Clinton's reaction to the debacle is as disturbing as the false story itself. Why did Clinton stubbornly continue to repeat a story that had been publicly proved to be untrue? Why would she later claim she "misspoke" when the story was scripted and consistently unfactual over multiple tellings?

The whole incident paints Clinton as calculating and prone to obfuscating the truth. These unflattering traits will hamper her ability to chip away at voters' negative perceptions of her and will stall her quest for a miraculous comeback. I think hesitation among voters to trust Clinton has been a fatal weakness of her candidacy, and this embarrassing fiasco suggests those fears are not totally unjustified.