Clinton's Bosnia tale is a perfect fit for modern media. easily summarized, sensationally brash, and complete with video.

but this idiotic lie isn't her biggest problem on the larger subject, though it does point to some psychological issues smart voters should take into account.

1) it is instantly recognizable that the reason why she told and embellished the Tuzla story was to bolster her foreign policy credentials, which are laughably weak. it is a small symptom of the larger disease; her inflation of her foreign policy experience beyond reasonable causal limits. most of her time spent overseas was going to official (but information) meetings and dinners and visiting tourist hotspots in that country, not making or influencing or presenting policy. she did not help the peace process in N. Ireland, she did not help negotiate a ceasefire in Kosovo, she did nothing of any real note at all; all contrary to the claims of her campaign. which brings me to the second problem:

2) most of the American public sees (wrongly, of course) John McCain as the most credible candidate on foreign policy. given this fact, why would Hillary promote her own paper-thin foreign policy resume as a primary strength? she can't best McCain on foreign policy, particularly when the right wing starts touting (legitimately!) all of the fact-checking done on her foreign policy claims.

now, some Clinton supporters might be thinking at this point, "well Obama doesn't have as much standard foreign policy experience as McCain either!", and they'd be right. but Obama is far, far better positioned to make the claim (as i suspect he will) that the conventional foreign policy experience John McCain has doesn't necessarily lead to good decisions, and will point to Iraq and Iran as examples. he is singularly capable of presenting a clear distinction between "old" experience and "new" approaches, which stands a good chance of trumping McCain's conventional yet horribly martial and ill-conceived foreign policy views that are out of step with the majority of Americans.

Clinton could never accomplish this, because she has sought to inflate her foreign policy credentials in the conventional sense rather than propose a new and superior paradigm, as well as voting alongside McCain on the key issues of Iraq and Iran.