Once Upon a Time . . .

It's simply too amusing to pass up. As a child, Hillary Clinton claims she wanted nothing more than to be an Olympic athlete.

This apparently occurred after she was named for Sir Edmund Hillary, about the time she was becoming a Yankees fan. No one knows for sure whether she was aware of her Jewish roots at the time.

Even her apocryphal tale about having applied to NASA has been subject to revision over the years.

Here's the question: Senator Clinton obviously feels it's necessary to come up with these pleasing fictions in order both to bond with her audience and allow them to relate to her. But does she think that no one's going to be fact-checking her? Hellooooo?

Finally, the piece reporting Senator Clinton's thwarted Olympic ambitions concludes as follows:

Despite all those apparent setbacks, Clinton urged students in the audience to pursue their dreams by believing in themselves and ignoring obstacles in their path.

"My whole life has been a speed bump," she said to laughs.

Yes, being married to a governor and president was a BIG "speed bump" -- she'd have been New York's senator a decade ago and probably already serving as President if she just hadn't married Bill Clinton, right? Please.

And how profoundly ungrateful to describe her extremely privileged life in such negative terms. Instead, how 'bout a few words of thanks to all the teachers, mentors and general encouragers that are so central to the accomlishments of anyone who achieves anything?

Hillary Clinton has undoubtedly achieved a lot. But she didn't do it all by herself -- and, whatever she says (and perhaps believes), it wasn't achieved against all odds.