I'm Sure It Won't Be Long...

before we see a headline like this:

We're Pretty Sure Palin Would Be Lying If She Had Said Some Stuff That We Were Hoping She Would.

The latest, from CNN (big surprise there) has the headline "Palin Never In Iraq, Campaign Now Says."

As NewsBusters points out, though, she never actually claimed she was ever in Iraq!

This is getting ridiculous, and it's beyond excusable. Palin never claimed she was in Iraq. "Palin officials" never claimed she was in Iraq. It seems that the only one who ever actually claimed she was in Iraq is an unnamed "Palin aide in Alaska." So, let me get this straight--the credibility of the entire story rests on someone who could possibly be some high-schooler doing an internship in the governor's office after school and most likely didn't know the difference between Kuwait (where Palin did visit) and Iraq?

The Boston Globe has a little more, and handles it a little better:

Following her selection last month as John McCain's running mate, aides said Palin had traveled to Ireland, Germany, Kuwait, and Iraq to meet with members of the Alaska National Guard. During that trip she was said to have visited a "military outpost" inside Iraq. The campaign has since repeated that Palin's foreign travel included an excursion into the Iraq battle zone.
They still don't report when these things were said, or by whom, but I noticed that in one case, they use the term "Iraq battle zone," which it appears she did, by visiting a military installation on the border.

At least the Globe makes it clear that she only went to the border because she wasn't allowed to go any further.

But she did not venture into Iraq, Osborn said. "You have to have permission to go into a lot of areas, and [the crossing] is where her permissions were," he said.

The last thing that struck me is that both papers seem to imply that her occasional claim of traveling to Ireland, although technically true, should be discounted because it was only a refuelling stop. In nearly the same breath, though, even though she was in a potentially dangerous area on the border of Iraq, visiting troops that, as a matter of course, had to go into Iraq, she somehow can't count that because she technically didn't cross the border, as if she had somehow managed to do a hokey-pokey and put her left foot in and shook it all about, all of this wouldn't be an issue.

If anyone has any legitimate story with quotes from Palin herself or a named source, saying that Palin went into Iraq, would you send them to me, or post the links in the comments section?

UPDATE: I guess I need to read more carefully. It looks like Palin did cross into Iraq, however briefly. The NewsBusters uses a quote from the CNN article that appears to have been changed (another "stealth edit"?). The line in question, as quoted by NewsBusters, says

"The Boston Globe reported Saturday that Palin visited the Iraqi side of a border crossing -- but never journeyed past the checkpoint."

The CNN version?

"The Boston Globe, however, reported Saturday that in response to questions about the trip, Alaska National Guard officials and campaign aides said Palin did not go past the Kuwait-Iraq border."

I have no proof that CNN changed their copy, but the Globe article seems to indicate that she did, in fact, enter Iraq proper.

"Her visit to Iraq itself..." (bold mine)

"Palin did not stay the night in Iraq..." (bold mine)

Why say that unless she was there during the day?

Whatever. Maybe we should stop being nit-picky and look at the candidates for president. Can we start listing the trips that they've made? I guess we could start with Obama's vacation to Bali, where he worked on his book, or maybe his trip to Germany to speak in front of the Germans while electing not to meet with actual Americans...wait, do those count?