While all political campaigns have their share of yarn-spinning, Hillary Clinton's '08 campaign is a beaut. I mean, this woman could supply the entire nation with sweaters single-handedly!

The very premise of her campaign would make Rod Serling salute. 35 years of experience! (?) In her own words: "I was usually the first person Bill would talk to about anything. It was a factor of both proximity and relationship." This explanation prompted Keith Olbermann to note: "By which logic Laura Bush should likewise be on the ballot in November - perhaps on a joint ticket with her mother-in-law."

Plus, Hillary will be the only candidate ready for duty "on Day One." As we all know, FDR wasn't ready until at least day 16. He had to make a pit stop and change the tires on his wheelchair.

Clinton is now deservedly infamous for her John Wayne version of a visit to Bosnia, ducking into an awaiting car after a corkscrew plane landing, dodging sniper fire, ad nauseum. The most fascinating aspect of her, uh, misremembering that event is that, when confronted by videotape showing her to be, um, mistaken, she tried to fob it off by flinging more, uh, misstatements.

First, her campaign stated that she "misspoke."

Then, Clinton herself weighed in: "You know, I think that, a minor blip, you know, if I said something that, you know, I say a lot of things - millions of words a day - so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement."

Take two: "I was sleep-deprived, and I misspoke."

Big finale: "I made a mistake. And, you know, I had a different memory. And my, you know, my staff and others have, you know, all kind of come together trying to sort out - so I made a mistake. That happens. It proves I'm human which you know, for some people, is a revelation."

Then, the kicker: "This is really about what policy experience we have and who's ready to be commander in chief. And I'm happy to put my experience up against Senator Obama's any day."

In other words, the person who makes up the most shit wins!

It would be possible to consider the Bosnia bullet-fest tale a slip-up had Clinton not begun telling it four months ago, embellishing upon it each successive time in at least three appearances. Each time it became more dangerous. By St. Patrick's Day, it was a full-tilt John Ford film.

Probably the funniest response to the tall Tuzla tale was from Clinton's then-pilot, retired Air Force Col. William "Goose" Changose who denied taking any evasive maneuvers landing in Bosnia. "Not only were there no bullets flying around, there wasn't a bumblebee flying around."

Drat! There goes next week's killer bees story. ("Over the hills they came, bees as far as the eye could see!")

Now, the popular political theory currently circulating is that if you criticize Clinton, you're doing so because you're a sexist. You don't want to see a woman in the White House. You're a zombie in the thrall of Obama!

Naaah. Not me! I criticize Clinton because she's running a doddering campaign filled with half-truths and embellishments that harkens back to the antiquated Good Ol' Boy days of political hogwash. After seven years of Bush, we deserve better. Don't assume we're idiots. If you're going to scam us, at least be creative.

Don't feed us crap like: "We used to say in the White House that if a place is too dangerous, too small or too poor, send the First Lady." Yeah, in my lifetime, I remember a lot of Presidents using their spouses as either crash test dummies or decoys. ("It might be a sniper! Send Ladybird out!")

Don't tell us you were the only First Lady to visit a "war zone" since World War II when Pat Nixon in Nam and Babs Bush in the Middle East beat ya to it.

All a candidate has to do is tell us their plans, not embellish their pasts. Hillary? Nobody cares about whether you were responsible for SCHIP (except the people who were) any more than they care about whether you helped bring peace to Northern Ireland, or negotiated open borders to let allow refugees to flee Kosovo safely, or whether you opposed NAFTA from the start while you were actually busy promoting it. You were the First Lady with no security clearance. You weren't a negotiator. You weren't a major player. You were an ambassador of good will. You are in your second term as a United States Senator. That's good enough. Deal with it.

Another aspect of the Clinton campaign that's amusing is Bill Clinton's belly-laffin bad cop routine. He's beginning to resemble Loony Tunes' Foghorn Leghorn, the rascally rooster who, pointing at a dog, says to widdle Henry the Chicken Hawk. "Now, A'hm not a chicken. That THAR's a chicken. Go get 'em, son. A-heh-heh."

Bill has this habit of dropping political double-entendres and, then, reacting with a sheepish "Who me? That's not what I meant" grin when folks get their noses out of joint. (Actually, I think ol' Bill's working on quadruple-entendres, now.)

He says stuff like "Apparently, it's OK to say bad things about a girl." Awww, Jeez. Who are you talking about; Alfalfa in "The He-Man Woman Haters' Club?"

Here's a classic, too: "Let's just saddle up and have an argument. What's the matter with that? That's what America's about, right?" God forbid we actually DISCUSS stuff, pardner. You know, like adults? Yeee-haw. Them thar's fightin' words.

Whilst still dallying in Democratic territory, let's take a look at the Obama camp. Criticizing his team is, supposedly, racist. I don't care what color my president is or isn't. If you're strong enough to run for that office and have opinions that galvanize me, I'd vote for you if you were paisley.

My biggest peeve concerning Obama is that he has a tendency to take the high road to such a rarified atmosphere that he seems long on philosophy and short on specifics. While Obama has padded his resume to an extent, he is small beer compared to his competitor. His sins are mostly of omission, downplaying everything from Rezko to Wright. As a politician, he should have known that both names would come up during his campaign and should have planned accordingly.

What both Clinton and Obama should do immediately is take all their surrogate spokesfolks out into a field and leave them there sans any communication devices until August. From Ferraro, Wolfson and Carville to McPeak and Powers - just let them gnaw their feet off on their own time. Spare us the bile and the blather. It's moronic.

For the record: Obama is not Ken Starr. Hillary Clinton is not a monster. Bill Clinton is not Joe McCarthy. Bill Richardson is not a Judas. Barack Obama loves his country as much as Clinton and John McCain. Reverend Jeremiah Wright is not comparable to Don Imus - except in the fact that neither of them is in the race. Clinton and McCain aren't any closer to crossing the presidential threshold than Obama and nobody gives a good goddamn who is awake at three in the morning to take a phone call. The American people are getting tired of politicos crapping in their hands and flinging it and calling the resulting splatter "insight."

From now on, if a politician wants to send out a surrogate to badmouth someone, I propose they use a hand puppet. This way, they would still be able to talk trash or guttersnipe but they'd actually be in the same shot as their little surrogate. Plus, it would be a hell of a lot more entertaining. The You Tube snippets would be priceless and the candidates could save money in terms of paid stooges on their staff.

(This is how moronic things are. In the wake of the Tuzla tussle, the Clinton campaign sent out a list of Obama misstatements, including: "Obama misspoke about his being conceived because of Selma. Mr. Obama relayed a story of how his Kenyan father and his Kansan mother fell in love because of the tumult of Selma, but he was born in 1961, four years before the confrontation at Selma took place. When asked later, Mr. Obama clarified himself, saying: 'I meant the whole civil rights movement.' New York Times, 3/5/07"

At no point did they reference Clinton's claiming, for years, that her mom named her after Sir Edmund Hillary - the first man to reach Mount Everest's summit. The problem with that story was that Clinton was born in 1947. Ol' Edmund didn't go vertically vroom until 1953. At the time of Clinton's birth, he was a beekeeper.

"Over Mount Everest they came, bees as far as..." Awww, skip it. Cue the hand puppet.)

On the Republican side of the squabble, we have John McCain, quite the interesting fellow. If you're against McCain, you're accused of "ageism." Yet, if McCain lets go with a factual fart, Republicans laugh it off, claiming John's just having a "senior moment." C'mon, guys. When Clint Eastwood fumbles a film because of his age or George Carlin blows a punchline, maybe THEN you can score with the geezer gaffe defense. Not until. Besides, if McCain IS dallying with dementia do we really want him elected as President? After all, we're coming off of seven years of batshit crazy.

McCain is a fascinating candidate in that the press pretty much gives him a free pass when he mangles reality. The MSM refer to him as a "maverick." Bill Clinton views him as a "moderate." Yet, if nothing else, his recent Middle East photo op proved that he doesn't know al Qaeda from Al Sharpton and really doesn't care. He knows what he knows and he knows that it's right.

McCain's understanding of the Muslim world is seemingly gleaned from repeated viewings of "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad." While a tremendous movie, it doesn't really lend itself well to foreign policy decisions. ("Damn those al Qaeda villains! They're using IEDs AND a giant Cyclops!")

He doesn't like Bush's leadership style but French kisses Bush's policies. (A job usually reserved for John's key hand puppet, jowly Joe Lieberman.) He claims to "detest war," yet jokes about being in Iraq for 10, 100 or 10,000 years. (We will definitely wear down the resistance fighters under McCain.) He claims that "victory" in Iraq and Afghanistan will be "the triumph of religious tolerance over violent radicalism." While that phrase sounds nice, even casual scrutiny reveals it to be screwy.

McCain wears standard Republican designer blinders when it comes to America's current FUBAR wars. Realistically, Iraq will never emerge from our incursion as a democracy. Never was. Never will be. Yet, McCain, in Buzz Lightyear mode can declare: "We're succeeding. I don't care what anybody says. I've seen the facts on the ground." (From his security drenched bubble.)

His attempts at boldness are bogus, even as he intones: "For the first time, I have seen Osama bin Laden and General Petraeus in agreement, and, that is, a central battleground in the battle against al Qaeda is in Iraq today." Clearly facts aren't a big factor in John's agenda.

In terms of our floundering economy, he wants a panel of experts to come up with a solution...as opposed to those other experts who got us into this hole. On the housing crisis, he believes that, pretty much, it's the homeowners who got themselves in over their heads. So sad. Their bad. But, he admits, "The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should. I've got Greenspan's book."

Considering Greenspan's track record, I might opt for an Elmore Leonard novel instead.

McCain's first national commercial leans heavily on his legendary war hero status and features footage of him as a POW. An announcer describes McCain as "an American president Americans have been waiting for." As opposed to all those Albanian presidents who we've been a' hankering for?

In a way, McCain's candidacy represents the triumph of misstatements. Day after day, he will make bold declarations that will have nothing to do with reality. They won't be called mistakes. They won't be called gaffes. They will be called policy. In other words, they will represent GOP SOP.

For now, we have to grit our teeth and hold our noses. Eventually, the field will be narrowed down to two presidential candidates (and maybe two hundred hand puppets). For Democrats, it will be a time to put all the misstatements, misrepresentations and misspeaking behind. It will be a time to enter the voting booth and vote for whomever the Democratic candidate is who will start to pull us all out of this Republican-spawned morass.

Not to do so would be a missed opportunity.

And a mistake.