I have waited a good long time to weigh in on Hillary Clinton's lies about surviving sniper fire in Bosnia. I did so because I wanted to give the former first lady a chance to repent. She hasn't.

All she has been willing to say about her repeated and demonstrably false claim to have landed in Bosnia in 1996 under sniper fire is that she "misspoke." That is not an admission of lying for the sole purpose of self-aggrandizement.

This is not a lie she told once. It was part of a prepared campaign speech she recounted over a three-month period. She even told the story after it had been documented as a fabrication in the press.

"I remember landing under sniper fire," she said. "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."

Oh, how brave Hillary is, adoring audiences must have thought. Amazingly, she invented this myth in the context of explaining how experienced she is in foreign policy matters. She explained to some audiences that during her husband's administration, foreign trips that were too dangerous for the president often meant the first lady was sent in his place.

Of course, anyone who has followed Hillary Clinton's path through the 1990s knows she lies. That's not even debatable. What this anecdote illustrates so clearly is how easily she lies — how effortlessly. She lies without giving it a second thought. She lies not only about her own experiences but also the experiences of others. She lies about public events that have been recorded on videotape. She lies when there is no reason to lie if she thinks she can persuade one more voter to believe she is experienced and brave.

As an employer, if job applicants lie on their résumés, I scratch them from my list of considerations. I don't think I'm alone in this practice.

If job applicants lie about their backgrounds, can I really trust them to carry out their responsibilities faithfully and honestly? I don't think so.

The American people have to start thinking about politicians as their employees. Why? Because that's what they are. Politicians are, in effect, campaigning to persuade citizens to hire them as public servants. Proven liars should be cast out of consideration without a second thought.

Sociopathic liars such as Hillary Clinton — people who lie as a matter of course, for any reason or no reason at all — should have their résumés thrown into "the circular file."

Unrepentant liars, such as Hillary, are not fit for the public office of dogcatcher, let alone commander in chief.

For those of you willing to give her a pass on this, please consider the following: Have you ever been shot at? If not, don't you think you would remember vividly if you had been? Do you think it is possible to imagine that you were shot at during a well-documented public event when, in fact, no shots were fired?

I don't have much use for her husband's administration, but didn't she indict Bill Clinton as a coward with her assertion that he sent the first lady on foreign missions he considered to be too dangerous? How bizarre is it to make such a statement — and to make it repeatedly over a three-month period?

What would you think of a job applicant who tried to pull that kind of wool over your eyes? That's what Hillary Clinton tried to do to you, to me, to all of us.

It's not unusual that politicians lie. But it is unusual for them to be caught in such brazen deception. If she gets away with it, we would have to rewrite the book on what lying tells us about people. We would have to allow job applicants to lie on their résumés as a matter of course. It would not be considered a sign of dishonesty. It would not be considered an indication of insecurity. It would not be considered an ominous suggestion of sociopathic behavior.

I'm not willing to allow Hillary to get away with that. Are you?

To find out more about Joseph Farah and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.