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.
Like the last election, we again have no real choice. It’s either McCain, who offers nothing, or Obama and Hillary, both of which will run this country into the ground and bankrupt us. Politics are sickening and we’re the real fools by not banding together and demanding a real change. Obama plays the race card at every opportunity and we’ve had enough of the Clintons in the White House. I do wonder if Hillary makes it there if she’ll return all of the items that they stole the last time they were at the White House.
Has Bill Clinton ever regretted anything, ever?
Just wanted to congratulate Fox for calling the primary in Pennsylvania. I was watching CNN and they seem almost disguested that she won which would maybe explain why they waited so long to call the primary.. I hope the reporting on the remainder of this campaign is less bias and substantive.
I am glad President Clinton is responding to this ridiculous media and Obama campaign driven statements of his being a racist. I am really sick of this whole concept. HE WAS STATING A FACT and if that information hurts your feelings, then get out of the race because you cannot be a baby about this. That would be like Hllary Clinton being a baby about being called a “bitch” which she has and neither the media or Obama campaign has found that so offensive. ENOUGH… President Clinton, you keep up what your doing. I don’t think you are hurting her campaign… To blame you for losing the black vote to Obama is also riduculous. I think this is the basis they are using to hide this behind the door racism against Hillary Clinton by the black community. I am sick of this nonsense that the racism is being one sided…
Who gives a flying F? Clinton racist? Right! Obama racist? Right! Report something worthy of you. Leave this crap to Entertainment tonight!
To Howard.
Tell us why your pal Bill Clinton did not detain known terrorist, Usama Bin Laden, therefore allowing Bin Laden to mastermind the bombing of the world trade center, Pentagon, etc.?
If you check history, you will probably find that most wars in which a Republican president was in office was a war that was directly or indirectly the result of the actions or inactions of a democratic president or democratically controlled congress or both.
A big task best left for historians to sort out: who lied more, Billy Boy or Her Hillaryness?
I think its just another way to twist things and call “racism” when none was intended. You cannot fight a fair campaign against Obama because everything said by anyone is turned into a racial issue. If people think voting an unqualified man in just to prove they arent racist is ignorant. I think Obama should take his licks just like Clinton is forced to take hers especially fom ABC and NBC. I have lost any and all respect for those news stations. The only racist remarks I have heard so far has been from the Obama campaign and his beloved racist reverend if you can call him that.
Howard you are incorrect. Here is a break down of what party was in office at the beginning of each war since the War of 1812.
1 War of 1812 Madison, Democrat
2 Civial War Lincoln, Repub
3 Spanish American War McKinley, Repub
4 WWI Wilson, Democrat
5 WWII Roosevelt, Democrat
6 Korea Truman, Democrat
7 Vietnam War, Kennedy Democrat
8 Dessert Storm Bush, Repub
9 Iraq War Bush, Repub
The way I see it the score is 5 to 4 Democrats taking the lead
It sounded like a compliment to me. Get a life for pete’s sake.