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Hillary Clinton claps at a campaign stop in Portage, Ind., where she spoke briefly about her interview on "The O'Reilly Factor" Wednesday. (AP Photo)

Hillary Clinton, in her first appearance on FOX News’ “The O’Reilly Factor,” said Barack Obama made the right move by condemning Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. but that she was still offended by the pastor’s statements.

In the first part of a two-part interview — the second will air at 8 p.m. ET Thursday on FOX News — Clinton also defended her stances on health care and oil companies and sought to burnish her image as a “fighter” candidate.

Asked about Wright, Clinton said it’s up to voters to decide whether the mounting controversy over Obama’s retired pastor should impact the presidential race.

“(Obama) spoke out forcefully yesterday,” she told Bill O’Reilly in the appearance taped Wednesday in South Bend, Ind. “He made his views clear, finally, that he disagreed, and I think that’s what he had to do.”

Obama went on the offensive Tuesday, saying he was “outraged” and “angered” by Wright’s statements the day before in Washington, D.C.

Clinton matched that outrage and repeated that she would not have stayed in the church if Wright were her pastor.

“Well, I take offense. I think it’s offensive and outrageous. I’m going to express my opinion, others can express theirs. It is part of just, you know, an atmosphere we’re in today,” she told O’Reilly.

Presumptive Republican nominee John McCain told FOX News on Thursday that he doesn’t think Obama shares Wright’s views, which he described as “really, incredibly outrageous,” but he said he doesn’t feel sorry about Obama’s plight.

“I think we all face challenges when we are in political campaigns. Running for president is bean bag … I think he has to have a discussion with the American people, and he said that it’s a valid political issue so I am sure that he will do that,” he said.

McCain stepped back from an earlier effort to stop the North Carolina Republican Party from using the issue in ads for statewide campaigns.

“I wish they wouldn’t but I am not going to referee, I am just going to run my own campaign,” he said.

Wright capped off his recent round of public appearances with a stop Monday at the National Press Club. There, Wright taunted reporters and declined to retract his statement that the government is responsible for afflicting minorities with HIV.

“I sure don’t believe the United States government was behind AIDS,” Clinton said in the Wednesday interview. “This is part of the mosaic and diversity of America. I happen to think it is just totally off base … but what people are talking to me about is not that.”

Clinton also defended her support of a summer gas tax holiday, which Obama has decried as a campaign “gimmick.”

“I’m trying to lay the groundwork so that when I’m president we can get in there and say this has been going on way too long,” Clinton said of record oil profits. “I also want to take on OPEC. You know, OPEC is a cartel, it’s a monopoly.”

Under criticism from O’Reilly, Clinton said she supported universal health care because “it’s a moral issue,” and also said she would raise taxes on people making more than $250,000 a year.

“I’m going to take as much as you were paying in the ’90s,” she said.

Campaign aides said her appearance on the show was designed to reach out to working-class, independent white men who could decide the outcome of next week’s Indiana primary.

“This is a campaign of firsts. I’m sitting down today, another first,” Clinton told O’Reilly.

Clinton also spoke about the personality differences between her and Obama.

Asked if she felt Obama’s momentum stems in part from a perception that she is polarizing, she said: “Well, I’ve been around a long time. I bear a lot of the scars, ideological and political battles. I stand up for what I believe in.”

As for the criticism she’s taken over the years, she said, “This is the way our system is, they take shots at me … you’ve got to be tough (to take on drug and health care companies) and we’ve got to have a president who’s a fighter again.”

Meanwhile, Obama’s handling of the Wright flap hasn’t been all bad for the Illinois senator’s campaign. In a surprise move, the furor over the pastor helped him secure the backing of one Democratic congressman from Indiana.

Rep. Baron Hill said he is “pleased that Senator Obama clearly and unequivocally denounced Reverend Wright’s remarks. Hoosiers don’t feel that way about our country, I don’t feel that way about our country and Senator Obama made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t feel that way either.”

Hill said that the way Obama handled the Wright controversy actually persuaded him to endorse. Indiana’s primary is Tuesday.

Asked about Wright in Indianapolis on Wednesday, Obama said the situation was “difficult.”

“He’s somebody who married us, he baptized our children — he’s done good things in terms of building the church, but frankly what he said over the last few days and in some of the sermons that have been excerpted were unacceptable and … what we want to do now though is to make sure that this doesn’t continue to be a perpetual distraction.”

Click here to see a clip from O’Reilly’s interview with Clinton.

The second part of the Clinton interview with Bill O’Reilly airs Thursday on the FOX News Channel at 8 p.m. ET.

FOX News’ Chad Pergram, Aaron Bruns and Bonney Kapp and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 1st, 2008 at 8:50 am and is filed under Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.