First up is Clinton. Back in 1996, the then-First Lady organized a solo trip to war-torn Bosnia. It was a laudable effort; she toured the front lines in lieu of her husband and brought relief both comic (Sinbad) and musical (Sheryl Crow) to the troops. Recently, however, Clinton has taken to citing the trip as evidence of her vast foreign policy experience, telling audiences in Ohio and elsewhere that –a claim that Sinbad, for one, was quick to rebut. “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,’” he told the Washington Post earlier this month. Clinton’s response? To

Had Hillary Clinton’s plane come “under sniper fire” in March 1996, we would certainly have heard about it long before now. Numerous reporters, including The Washington Post’s John Pomfret, covered her trip. A review of nearly 100 news accounts of her visit shows that not a single newspaper or television station reported any security threat to the first lady. “As a former AP wire-service hack, I can safely say that it would have been in my lead had anything like that happened,” Pomfret said. According to Pomfret, the Tuzla airport was “one of the safest places in Bosnia” in March 1996 and “firmly under the control” of the 1st Armored Division.

In case you don’t trust a dirty journalist–and really, who can blame you?–there’s this video, from CBS’s contemporaneous report on the trip, to prove that Clinton is, well, fibbing:

Notice the marked absence of sniper fire or frantic running for safety. Predictably, the Obama camp circulated the clip to reporters this afternoon under the heading “Must-See Video,” noting that the Post had awarded Clinton “four Pinocchios” for stretching the truth. “Let’s just say that Geppetto would not be proud,” wrote spokesman Tommy Vietor. “The Tuzla story, now thoroughly debunked, joins a growing list of instances in which Senator Clinton has exaggerated her role in foreign and domestic policymaking.”

Should we be as outraged as Vietor? Eh. In a conference call this morning, Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson admitted that “it is possible in the most recent instance in which she discussed this that she misspoke in regard to the exit from the plane.” That much is inarguable. But in her memoir, Living History, Clinton DID write that “due to reports of snipers in the hills around the airstrip, we were forced to cut short an event on the tarmac with local children”–and she wasn’t running for president when the book was released in 2003. What’s more, the senator has described the event similarly many times since, and her recent slip was not, as Vietor suggests, included in her “prepared remarks,” but rather a transcript of her speech released more than an hour after last week’s event. So we’re willing say that it was an off-the-cuff, politically expedient exaggeration, and not part of an insidious pattern of falsehood. Think Al Gore–not, like, Eliot Spitzer.

OUTRAGE-OMETER: Five out of 10.

Now for Obama. On his blog, Gordon Fischer, a former Iowa Democratic Party chairman and current Obama adviser in the Hawkeye State, wrote this morning that former President Bill Clinton’s comments in front of a North Carolina VFW Hall, which Obama supporters heard as impugning Obama’s patriotism, were “a stain on his legacy, much worse, much deeper, than the one on Monica’s blue dress.” The Clintonites quickly pounced. On a conference call with reporters this afternoon, Clinton spokesman Phil Singer called it the “most personal attack yet,” saying the Obama campaign is being “fueled by insult and slander.” Fischer immediately apologized, and Vietor released a statement saying that “comments like this have no place in our political dialogue.” But Team Clinton wouldn’t loosen its grip, insisting that no apology was necessary because Fischer’s statement was “in keeping with the tenor of the Obama campaign.”

How angry should we be? Not very. Despite the constant, predictable cycle of surrogate gaffes, manufactured outrage and under-the-bus maneuvers, the candidates themselves have been pretty civil this time around. It’s simply ridiculous to say the Obama campaign–one of the more strenuously positive in recent memory–has been “fueled by insult and slander.” Same goes for Clinton’s. Have things gotten heated from time to time? Sure. But in the words of Clinton supporter James Carville, that’s politics. “This sort of hyper-sensitivity diminishes everyone who engages in it,” he recently wrote. So unless you think that Fischer’s admittedly lewd remark somehow reflects his boss’s thinking, there’s no reason to get your knickers in a twist.

OUTRAGE-OMETER: Two out of 10.

That said, Obama HAS given us all something to be outraged about. While Stumper slaves away in cloudy, 45-degree Brooklyn, the Democratic frontrunner is spending three days on the beach in–wait for it–St. Thomas. Walking along the shore Sunday, Obama was soon spotted by a family of U.S. tourists, including a six-year-old girl who had just finished an Easter Egg hunt. The two posed for a photo together. No politics involved–the Virgin Islands voted on Feb. 9. Just sun, surf and sand.

So unfair.

OUTRAGE-OMETER: Ten out of 10.