Sinbad Unloads on Hillary Clinton

Finally, the Barack Obama campaign has found a big gun to help shoot down Hillary Rodham Clinton's self-proclaimed foreign policy experience. And he may be the wackiest gun of all: Sinbad, the actor, who has come out from under a rock to defend Obama in the war over foreign policy credentials.

Sinbad, along with singer Sheryl Crow, was on that 1996 trip to Bosnia that Clinton has described as a harrowing international experience that makes her tested and ready to answer a 3 a.m. phone call at the White House on day one, a claim for which she's taking much grief on the campaign trail.

Harrowing? Not that Sinbad recalls. He just remembers it being a USO tour to buck up the troops amid a much worse situation than he had imagined between the Bosnians and Serbs.

In an interview with the Sleuth Monday, he said the "scariest" part of the trip was wondering where he'd eat next. "I think the only 'red-phone' moment was: 'Do we eat here or at the next place.'"

Clinton, during a late December campaign appearance in Iowa, described a hair-raising corkscrew landing in war-torn Bosnia, a trip she took with her then-teenage daughter, Chelsea. "They said there might be sniper fire," Clinton said.

Threat of bullets? Sinbad doesn't remember that, either.

"I never felt that I was in a dangerous position. I never felt being in a sense of peril, or 'Oh, God, I hope I'm going to be OK when I get out of this helicopter or when I get out of his tank.'"

In her Iowa stump speech, Clinton also said, "We used to say in the White House that if a place is too dangerous, too small or too poor, send the First Lady."

Say what? As Sinbad put it: "What kind of president would say, 'Hey, man, I can't go 'cause I might get shot so I'm going to send my wife...oh, and take a guitar player and a comedian with you.'"

As you may have guessed by now, Sinbad isn't supporting Clinton for president. He's an Obama guy. All because of Clinton.

"What got me about Hillary was her attitude of entitlement, like he messed up her plan, like he had no reason to be there," Sinbad said. "I got angry. I actually got angry! I said, 'I will be for Obama like never before.'"

But he's less ticked off with the Clinton campaign than he is with Saturday Night Live for its Hillary-loving sketches that portray Obama as an unqualified nervous Nelly. What really bothers him is SNL's choice of actor (Fred Armisen) to play Obama.

"My problem is -- you couldn't just temporarily hire a black man to play Obama? You had to put a white man in a black face? You couldn't find a light-skinned brother to play Obama?"

The Clinton campaign doesn't seem amused by Sinbad's commentary or his recollection of the 1996 Bosnia trip as more depressing than harrowing.

Defending Clinton's characterization of her Bosnia mission, campaign spokesman Phil Singer kindly provided experts from news stories written about the trip at the time, including a Washington Post story from May 26, 1996, that said, "This trip to Bosnia marks the first time since Roosevelt that a first lady has voyaged to a potential combat zone."

Singer also cited a Kansas City Star article from September 2000 that quoted Sinbad as describing the situation in Bosnia as "so tense. It was Crips and Bloods." (And that's how Sinbad continued to characterize the situation in our interview Monday. He said, "At the time, we didn't realize how crazy it was between the Bosnians and the Serbs. I didn't realize how much hate was going on.")

Still, defending Clinton against Sinbad the refuter, Singer said, "The sad reality of what was going on in Bosnia at the time Senator Clinton traveled there as first lady has been well documented. It appears that Sinbad's experience in Bosnia goes back further than Senator Obama's does. In fact, has Senator Obama ever been to Bosnia?"

Snarky, snarky!

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