I guess that claim was Joan's lie. It must be contagious when you have your head that far up Hillary's... well, you know. Just look back at last week's articles on Hillary's Bosia fiasco and see for yourself how thinly covered it was at Salon. And absolutely no coverage on it by Joan, of course.

As for Hillary's other lies, here's a list courtesy of Dick Morris, compliling Hillary's admitted lies along with all the ones she hasn't quite fessed up to yet:

ADMITTED LIES:

• Chelsea was jogging around the Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. (She was in bed watching it on TV.)

• Hillary was named after Sir Edmund Hillary. (She admitted she was wrong. He climbed Mt. Everest five years after her birth.)

• She was under sniper fire in Bosnia. (A girl presented her with flowers at the foot of the ramp.)

• She learned in The Wall Street Journal how to make a killing in the futures market. (It didn't cover the market back then.)

WHOPPERS SHE WON'T CONFESS TO:

• She didn't know about the FALN pardons.

• She didn't know that her brothers were being paid to get pardons that Clinton granted.

• Taking the White House gifts was a clerical error.

• She didn't know that her staff would fire the travel office staff after she told them to do so.

• She didn't know that the Peter Paul fundraiser in Hollywood in 2000 cost $700,000 more than she reported it had.

• She opposed NAFTA at the time.

• She claimed to have organized "instrumental" meetings in Belfast and baldly asserted that she "helped to bring peace to Northern Ireland" -- never mind that key negotiators dismissed her as "totally invisible," "cheerleading," and "a wee bit silly."

• She urged Bill to intervene in Rwanda.

• She played a role in the '90s economic recovery.

• The billing records showed up on their own.

• She thought Bill was innocent when the Monica scandal broke.

• She was always a Yankees fan.

• She had nothing to do with the New Square Hasidic pardons (after they voted for her 1,400-12 and she attended a meeting at the White House about the pardons).

• She negotiated for the release of refugees in Macedonia (who were released the day before she got there).

• She claimed to have "helped start" the federal Children Health Insurance Program -- never mind that the program’s original sponsors noted that Sen. Clinton fought the initial bill and had no role in writing the legislation.

• She bragged that she was the "first" to call the disaster in Darfur "genocide" -- never mind that several other senators had done so in 2004, while her first press statement referring to Darfur as "genocide" wasn’t until March 2006.

Joan and Hillary. Two peas in a pod when it comes to lying.

I'm not a big fan of Dick Morris either. But he DID serve the Clintons for many years and knows them very well. His distain for them now can only be a result of his insight into their true character.

Joan's pathetic attempt to find a silver lining in this bloody Democratic primary debacle -- namely the fact that Dan Balz thinks it's "good" for the party -- is more evidence of just how much Klinton Kool Aid she's been drinking.

The irony here, Joan, is what your article SHOULD have been talking about is buried in the third line of your last paragraph, reading:

"I'm concerned about reports that as many as a quarter of each Democrat's supporters say they'll vote for John McCain if their candidate fails."

You're concerned, Joan? Oh, yes, BE concerned. Be VERY concerned. Because it's not some meaningless report that you can simply brush aside and say -- "But I don't believe it" -- even though that's exactly what you did. This report is a blockbuster insight taken from a current Rasmussen poll. THAT's the story here, Joan. Not some starry-eyed take on "how good" all this gutter sniping that Hillary now has confessed she plans to take all the way to the convention in August.

The fact is, Hillary needs to get out -- now.

Last week, an important Clinton adviser told Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen of Politico that Clinton had no more than a 10 percent chance of winning the nomination. Now, after losing her battle for revotes in Michigan and Florida, and topping it off with her "sleep deprived" Bosnia lie, David Brooks of the New York Times believes she's probably down to a 5 percent chance.

I suggest your time would be better spent reading yesterday's article by Mr. Brooks' entitled "The Long Defeat" rather than deluding yourself over fantasies put forth by misguided scribes like Dan Balz. The Brooks article details precisely what Hillary is willing to do to the party over the next three months for her meeker 5% chance at victory. Go to:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/25/opinion/25brooks.html

and, for once, allow reality to slap you in the face nice and hard, Joan.

I do not shoot the messenger when he speaks the truth. And I go out of my way to get opinions from all sides.