SENATOR CLINTON ACKNOWLEDGES SHE ‘MISSPOKE’ ON BOSNIA

Senator Clinton acknowledged yesterday that she misspoke recently when she described being under sniper fire during a visit to Bosnia in 1996. “I misspoke,” Mrs. Clinton told the Philadelphia Daily News during an editorial board meeting yesterday. “I say a lot of things — millions of words a day — so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement.”

During a national security speech last week, Mrs. Clinton said she recalled “landing under sniper fire” during the Tuzla stop. “There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base,” she said.

Video of the visit shows Mrs. Clinton and Chelsea Clinton smiling as they walked across the tarmac to greet children and meet with American military personnel. Camera crews and others can be seen moving about.

“What I was told was that we had to land a certain way and move quickly because of the threat of sniper fire,” the former first lady explained to the Philadelphia newspaper yesterday. “If I said something that made it seem as though there was actual fire — that’s not what I was told.”

PUERTO RICO CHANGES TO PRIMARY, MOVES UP ELECTION

Senator Clinton received good news yesterday when the Democratic National Committee approved Puerto Rico’s decision to move its nominating contest up by six days and change it to a primary from a caucus. The primary will now be held June 1, meaning that Montana and South Dakota now have the honor of holding the Democratic Party’s last elections two days later. Mrs. Clinton has relied on Hispanic voters as a base of support, but she has struggled in caucus elections throughout the primary campaign and she and her husband have suggested they disenfranchise voters. Puerto Rico’s party chairman, Roberto Prats, said the format would allow more voters to participate, the Associated Press reported. Trailing Senator Obama, Mrs. Clinton will need as many of the island’s 55 delegates as she can get.

OBAMA AIDE APOLOGIZES FOR CITING LEWINSKY IN CLINTON CRITIQUE

A top aide to Senator Obama in Iowa apologized yesterday for invoking the Monica Lewinsky scandal to upbraid President Clinton for comments that were seen as questioning Mr. Obama’s patriotism. “B. Clinton should never be forgiven. Period,” a senior adviser to the Obama campaign, Gordon Fischer, wrote on his personal Web log. “This is a stain on his legacy, much worse, much deeper, than the one on Monica’s blue dress.” He later deleted the comment and replaced it with an apology, writing that his “tasteless and gratuitous comments” were “unnecessary and wrong.” Stumping for his wife Friday in North Carolina, Mr. Clinton said: “I think it would be a great thing if we had an election between two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interests of the country.” While an Obama supporter, General Anthony McPeak, has compared the former president to Joseph McCarthy, the Clinton campaign has said he was in no way disparaging Mr. Obama. The remarks are the latest in a series of off-message comments from supporters of both campaigns that have flared into controversy in recent weeks.

CLINTON AIDE PRAISES SUN SERIES ON CANDIDATE’S CALIFORNIA SUMMER

Senator Clinton’s chief spokesman, Howard Wolfson, is offering praise for stories The New York Sun ran in November detailing Mrs. Clinton’s clerkship in 1971 at a California law firm led by a communist and a former communist. “I don’t mean to be overly complimentary — I thought they were well reported and interesting and well written. They found some things that were new,” he said during a conference call with reporters yesterday. He raised the Sun series in response to a question about which of Senator Obama’s past associations deserved more attention.

“You spent a considerable amount of time reporting and researching a period of Senator Clinton’s life that she spent in California,” Mr. Wolfson said. “I assume that you and others are similarly devoting a considerable amount of time and effort and resources to looking at parts of Senator Obama’s life.”