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.
Anne McGrody
April 22nd, 2008 at 11:54 pm
Are you 100% sure that michelle Obama’s thesis espouses “feelings of hate for the United States” or is that just your assumption. Be honest, can you site your source?????????????
John in Virginia
April 22nd, 2008 at 10:44 pm
Hit the nail on the head. thank you for understanding!
Some people think that the original comment was not intended to have the subtle racial undertones that it did. (Why didn’t he mention that John Edwards also handily won that state without winning the nomination?)
It’s also a display of the Clintons unrepentent duplicity - He attempts to shape the prior South Carolina comment with no regards to the actual factual details which show that he was not in fact sitting around drinking coffee with the campaign. He was talking to a reporter outside a rally trying to explain how Hillary went from having a double digit lead in that state to being trounced despite the fact that both he and his wife were campaigning as a team.
See the recorded question and answer here:
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/01/26/for_bill_clinton_echoes_of_jac.html
He and his wife will never get my support again and I am a diehard yellow dog dem from New York.
I wonder why Michelle Obama’s thesis at Princeton has been sealed to after the election. I understand that it talks about the “white oppressor” and her feelings of hate for the United States. I think that this should be public information.
votes are always predicted and analyzed on the basis of race, age, and sex. Former President Clinton was analyzing votes. He was not being racist.
Is the Obama camp racist when they do it? No? So why call Clinton racist?
“Comment by sandi
April 22nd, 2008 at 8:17 pm
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.”
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To Sandi and others who have posted similar comments: Things can have racial implications whether there is intention or not. But first and foremost, Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton know exactly what they did in this election and they have you fooled. First of all, they have a ton of experience with black people. They are also politician and are very calculated in what they do. This is an election campaign and candidates teams comb over the potential effects of their comments, though there are sometimes hick up comments. Now, with that in mind, I need look no further than white people on this blog to see how white people think about ANY black person who says they have experienced racism; whether or not they indeed experienced it. The response, and yours is indeed typical, is almost always: “Oh, he is just playing the race card.” Barack Obama and everyone else with any lick of common sense knows that ANY MENTION of race from his mouth is not in his best interest. Black people make up 13% of the population and far less than the voting population. That means Obama must impress the other 87% of white and other voters to have a chance to win. That means he would not (and in fact did not) inject race into the primary. What Clinton did was make that ridiculous comment about the Civil Rights Movement (referring to the Act, specifically)”It took a president to get it done.” She knew what the reaction would be to that comment. Think about it: you make that comment in a place like South Carolina; loaded with blacks who marched in that movement, grew up in segregation, saw relatives and friends intimidated, beaten, shot, hung, maced, demeaned, attacked by dogs, and dodging firehoses. You think those people thought Lyndon Johnson got it done while they were out there getting their asses kicked? No. And they shouldn’t have. Lyndon Johnson may have signed that Act, but he didn’t pay the price for it. That was insulting to those people. But Clinton knew it would be. And she knew at least a few black leaders would have something to say about it. Obama kept his mouth shut other than saying it was an “ill advised comment.” Jim Clyborne, a representative from South Carolina is the one who called her on it. But she said “Obama twisted her words” and took the standpoint that they were painting them as racists. Why? To piss off white voters and get the away from Obama. Afterall, the only two contests that had been had were all white Iowa, which Obama won, and all white New Hampshire, in which Obama lost, but did well. That had to be stopped. By the way, Clinton had a ton of black support until then. Don’t give me that BS that Obama played the race card. That is absolutely ludicrous.
This campaign is so different from any I remember in my 58 years of life. It’s interesting to watch how this race card is being played from all sides. Unfortunately as our Republic becomes more multiracial I think for a while we can expect this racial clash to occur in our campaigns. I think Mrs. Clinton see’s a lot of weaknesses in Mr. Obama’s campaign that a lot of Democrats can’t quite see now. As for all of them I’m wondering just how they’ll end the Iraq War and bring down the cost of gas.
both of the clintons seem to have troble with the way they remember things. if its their gaff
What a classy ex-president!! I guess things were all fine and dandy when “those people” were voting for them. You know, when “they” knew their place.
My God, either one of the Clintons will lie for this nomination. Bill just wants the honor of being the first person to be President and First Lady both!!!