Let me just tell you. The president of Bosnia and Gen. Wesley Clark -- who was there making peace where we'd lost three peacekeepers who had to ride on a dangerous mountain road because it was too dangerous to go the regular, safe way -- both defended her because they pointed out that when her plane landed in Bosnia, she had to go up to the bulletproof part of the plane, in the front. Everybody else had to put their flack jackets underneath the seat in case they got shot at. And everywhere they went they were covered by Apache helicopters. So they just abbreviated the arrival ceremony.

Now I say that because, what really has mattered is that even then she was interested in our troops. And I think she was the first first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt to go into a combat zone. 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.

In other retellings, Clinton modified the details in other campaign stump retellings of the tale Thursday, at one point quoting the former Bosnian president saying "there were snipers in the hills all around" and that Hillary's traveling companions "had to sit on" their flak jackets. ABC's Jake Tapper counted eight fibs in Clinton's retelling of his wife's adventure.

(1) Her most glaringly wrong telling of the tale, on March 17, 2008, was in the morning.
(2) She actually told versions of the story several times. (And none was at night.)
(3) In an e-mail to journalist Eric Jansson, former acting Bosnian president Ejup Ganic said "we didn't expect snipers," though, "we still believed that some positions on the hills were occupied by radical Serbs, so I was worried about the overall safety."
(4) Not according to the pilot Colonel William "Goose" Changose (Ret.), who said, "nobody under my watch has ever directed anyone to sit on their flak jackets. ... We do not direct people to sit on their flak jackets."
(5) It wasn't immediate at all -- it was 11 days later, first in an editorial board meeting with the Philadelphia Inquirer/Philadelphia Daily News, then later in a press availability.
(6) She never apologized.
(7) It was 1996, not 1995.
(8) He qualified it with "I think," but then-first lady Pat Nixon went to a combat zone in Saigon, Vietnam, in July 1969.

Clinton's inaccurate retelling has puzzled campaign observers. "Does Bill Want Hillary to Be President?" asked a blogger at the Houston Chronicle. The Baltimore Sun's John Riley noted Clinton's excuse that his wife was tired at 11 p.m.

"But at 3 a.m. she'll be wide awake?" he mused, referring to two ads Clinton released arguing that she would be best prepared to handle a crisis in the wee hours of the morning.

On MSNBC Friday morning, host Joe Scarborough played the Bill Clinton clip several times, including once before an interview with Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod.

"I'm going to ask you exactly how the Obama campaign is funneling money to Bill Clinton," Scarborough joked. "Whether it's in cash deposits below $10,000 or whether it's a barter system like you let him golf at Augusta National in return for statements like this."

Clinton's campaign spokesperson Phil Singer responded to the comments.

"Senator Clinton appreciates her husband standing up for her," he said, "but this was her mistake and she takes responsibility for it."

Later in the day, the former president said that he has been ordered to hold his tongue, saying "Hillary called me and said 'You don't remember this. You weren't there, let me handle it.' I said, 'Yes ma'am.'"