Democrat Hillary Clinton apologised on Wednesday over her false claim that she came under sniper fire during a 1990s trip to Bosnia, but said the incident should not undermine her White House campaign.
Going further than her previous statements that she mis-spoke about Bosnia, the former first lady said during a televised debate with her rival Barack Obama that she was "very sorry" and "embarrassed" about her gunfire mistake.
"I can tell you that I may be a lot of things. But I'm not dumb," she said.
"And I have said that, you know, it just didn't jive with what I had written about and knew to be the truth," Clinton said, after recent polls suggested her reputation among voters for trustworthiness stands at a low ebb.
The New York senator, however, also hinted that her gaffe resulted from the strains of campaigning, despite having made the Bosnia claim on several occasions this year including in scripted speeches.
"So, I will either try to get more sleep or have somebody that is there as a reminder (of the facts) to me," she said, adding that both herself and Obama had said things that "turned out not to be accurate."
Clinton insisted that her experience as first lady of visiting more than 80 countries including Bosnia "gives me a tremendous advantage going into this campaign, particularly against (Republican) Senator (John) McCain."
The Obama campaign had jumped on the Bosnia controversy to buttress its claim that Clinton dishonestly exaggerates her resume to argue that she is ready to be commander-in-chief.
Television footage from the 1996 trip, on which Clinton was joined by her daughter Chelsea, singer Sheryl Crow and comedian Sinbad, contradicted her claims to have scurried across the tarmac at Tuzla airbase under gunfire.
The reports showed Clinton's party being greeted by smiling officials on the tarmac at Tuzla as it disembarked from a US military plane, and listening as an eight-year-old Bosnian girl read out a poem.
At the Philadelphia debate, held days before next Tuesday's Pennsylvania primary, Obama said his Democratic rival for the White House "deserves the right to make some errors once in a while."
"Obviously, I make some as well," the Illinois senator said, after getting in trouble for portraying working-class voters as "bitter."
"I think what's important is to make sure that we don't get so obsessed with gaffes that we lose sight of the fact that this is a defining moment in our history," Obama added.
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