Bill Clinton Bristles Anew Over Questions About ‘Race Card’
Former President Bill Clinton had a testy encounter Tuesday with reporters who questioned his remarks in a radio interview in which he accused Barack Obama’s campaign of unfairly playing the race card on him.
“You always follow me around and play these little games,” Clinton shot back at an ABC News reporter who questioned him about a phone interview with Philadelphia public radio station WHYY.
On Monday, an audibly irritated Clinton railed against the Obama campaign for what he described as an effort to twist comments made in South Carolina on Jan. 26, the Palmetto State’s presidential primary election day.
In the remarks that sparked the furor, Clinton compared Obama’s campaign to that of civil rights activist Jesse Jackson.
“Jesse Jackson won in South Carolina twice in ‘84 and’88, and he ran a good campaign, and Senator Obama has run a good campaign. He has run a good campaign everywhere. He’s got a good — He is a good candidate with a good organization,” Clinton said.
Obama supporters said the remarks were meant to belittle Obama by comparing him with a black candidate whose appeal was more narrow. Obama called the remarks hallmarks of the politics of racism.
Asked Monday if he regretted the comment, Clinton responded: “No, I think that they played the race card on me, and we now know from memos in the campaign and everything that they planned to do it all along.
“Do I regret saying it? No. Do I regret that it was used that way? I certainly do. But you’ve really got to go some (distance) to portray me as a racist,” Clinton said, adding that he has an office in Harlem, and Jackson told him personally he was not offended.
“I called him and asked him if he found anything offensive. And he just laughed and he said, ‘Of course I don’t. We all know what’s going on,’ ” Clinton said.
Clinton told WHYY that he has “conceded that this was used against me, but this was a conversation that occurred early in the morning. We didn’t even know what the vote was going to be at the time. We were all sitting around, drinking coffee — we just finished breakfast — and we were starting, we were talking about South Carolina political history.
“And this was used out of context, and this was twisted for political purposes by the Obama campaign to try to breed resentment elsewhere.”
The former president added a more colorful remark at the end of an interview when he appeared to think he was off-mic.
“I don’t think I should take any sh** from anybody on that, do you?” he apparently asked someone in the room.
A reporter on Tuesday asked Clinton what he meant when he said the Obama campaign was playing the race card on him.
Clinton responded: “No, no, no, that’s not what I said. … You always follow me around and play these little games. And I am not going to play your games today. This is a day about Election Day. Go back and see what the question was, and what my answer was. You have mischaracterized it just to get another cheap story to divert the American people from the real urgent issues before us, and I choose not to play your game today.”
Faced with questions about the former president’s remarks, Obama said he simply didn’t understand Clinton’s point.
“So hold on a second,” Obama told reporters with a chuckle. “So former President Clinton dismissed my victory in South Carolina as being similar to Jesse Jackson and he is suggesting that somehow I had something to do with it? OK, well, you better ask him what he meant by that.”
His campaign spokesman dismissed it with more glee.
“The secret memo? Where we put the idea in his head to say what he said so he can blame us for having said it?” spokesman Robert Gibbs said with a wink. “That would be pretty good if we could do that.”
Hillary Clinton sidestepped questions at a campaign stop in Pennsylvania about her husband’s remarks.
“I think we’re going to stay focused on what voters are focused on,” she said.
Clinton’s recollection of the Jan. 26 comment is a problem his wife has had to deal with throughout her campaign. While Clinton recalls the comments coming over coffee, the specific remark most people refer to came during an impromptu television interview with an ABC reporter. No breakfast or coffee was immediately visible in video of the interview that was given outdoors.
Click here to hear Bill Clinton’s WHYY interview on YouTube.
Click here to see an ABC video clip of Obama responding to the remarks and Clinton’s comments.
ABC should stop trying to create the news and go back to reporting the news before we all decide that it is no longer a news organization and look for real news elsewhere.
Well fox the new story is now Bill is saying he didn’t say what was recorded on the radio interview. I find it amazing he and Hillary can lie so blatantly and they don’t even care.
Click here to see Obama admit playing the race card on the Clinton’s….http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQY_9ZcsjpQ
Go ahead I dare you……
Well ya know… since the 1960’s — it’s been a bum rush to the White House. Now that is the truth!
Both dem. candidates can’t take it. Every time (which is seldom) either are asked hard questions like republican’s get all the time, they get all bent out of shape. If the media coverage was fair, the dems would never win another election. The TRUTH would bury them, and they know it. That’s why they get upset when they have to tell it.
Bill… Just shrug your shoulders and say, “SO”.
come on, just do it.
On reference of the interview in which he accused the Obama campaign of unfairly playing the race card on him, and the next day Clinton responded: “No, no, no, that’s not what I said. I only want to quote him in another lie “I never had sex with that woman” looks like the Clinton’s only remember the true when is convenient
You get what you vote for!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hill/Bill or Obama doesn’t matter, the Terrorists are licking their chops for a Dem to get the Office and if that happens, the War will come to our home shores and be in our backyards to fight. Then all of these other things like the Economy, Gas prices. the price of Food, Education, etc will be mute. Survival will be the number one concern. Wake up America, before it’s to late…..
Voters in Pa for Hillery fail to understand what lies ahead with Bill’s comments or actions that could very well affect the Presidency if she is elected.