Bill Clinton: "I Kind Of Like To See Barack And Hillary Fight"

WASHINGTON — Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton argued on Tuesday that Barack Obama's frustration with losing prompted him to look for a fight in their latest debate. Obama said his rival and her husband, former President Clinton, were distorting his record.

"I think it's very clear that Senator Clinton ... and the president have been spending the last month attacking me in ways that are not accurate," Obama told reporters in a conference call shortly after she lashed out at him in a bitter exchange that carried over from Monday night's debate.

Speaking to reporters in Washington, Hillary Clinton belittled Obama's line of debate criticism against her as "rehearsed points."

"I think what we saw last night was that he's very frustrated," she said. "I believe that the events of the last 10 or so days, the outcome of New Hampshire and Nevada, have apparently convinced him to adopt a different strategy."

Former President Clinton said Tuesday he enjoyed the bickering.

"I know you think it's crazy, but I kind of like to see Barack and Hillary fight," Bill Clinton told a mostly white crowd of about 300 at a black church in Greenville, S.C. "They're flesh and blood people and they have their differences _ let them have it."

Asked whether he thought his legacy among blacks would be harmed by challenging Obama, Clinton said he wasn't standing in Obama's way but rather advocating for his wife.

"I think it would be just as much a change, some people think more, to have the first woman president than to have the first African-American president," Bill Clinton said.

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In the debate in Myrtle Beach, S.C., the two leading Democrats argued bitterly and in personal terms over issues such as Iraq and Bill Clinton's role in the campaign.

"He clearly came last night looking for a fight. He was determined and launched right in," Hillary Clinton said. "And I thought it was important to set the record straight."

She restated her argument that Obama was unwilling to answer hard questions about his record, including his opposition to the Iraq war, his support for military budgets and his "present" votes as a member of the Illinois Legislature.

Obama countered that this was all part of Clinton's strategy.

"Senator Clinton announced while we were still in Iowa that this was going to be her strategy and called it the fun part of campaigning. And, you know, I don't think it's the fun part to fudge the truth," he said. "The necessary part of this campaign is to make sure that we're getting accurate information to voters about people's respective records."

The bickering brought new calls for calm from former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, running third among Democratic contenders. "There was a lot of squabbling," Edwards told reporters in a conference call Tuesday. "While Senator Clinton and Senator Obama were hurling charges and countercharges at each other, I was thinking, `I'm John Edwards and I represent the grown-up wing of the Democratic Party.'"

During an economic speech in Greenville, S.C., Obama accused Clinton of taking politically expedient positions inconsistent with her record. The Illinois senator put an unflattering twist on her contention that she is the candidate most ready to be president from the first day.

"We can't afford a president whose positions change with the politics of the moment. We need a president who knows that being ready on Day One means getting it right from Day One," Obama said as he received the only standing ovation of his speech.

The New York senator defended her husband's aggressive criticism of Obama. She said it did not contradict the former president's role as senior statesman and party leader.

"I can tell you that never crossed our minds. That's not how we think," she said. "It has absolutely nothing to do with a unified Democratic Party around a nominee and a full support for whoever our Democratic president will be. That is just the way it works."

The Obama campaign began a "truth squad" in South Carolina to respond to negative criticism. Involved in the effort was former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota.

People in South Carolina "don't want to see this backbiting, bitter give-and-take that we're beginning to see more and more of, especially from the Clinton campaign. It's wrong. everybody knows it's wrong and it's got to stop," Daschle told reporters on a conference call. "Ultimately, it's going to divide us. And it's going to have a huge effect, a lasting effect if it doesn't stop soon."

Asked about Bill Clinton's actions, Daschle said, "It's not presidential. It's not in keeping with the image of a former president."

Hillary Clinton, in her comments with reporters, rejected the notion she had used patronizing or racially charged language against Obama. She has called him, among other things, a "talented" and "young African-American man."

Clinton traveled to Salinas, Calif., to accept the backing of the United Farm Workers Union, which represents a heavily Hispanic work force. It is active in 10 states and represents 27,000 farm workers.

Clinton won Nevada's presidential caucuses Saturday in part because of a strong showing among Hispanic voters _ a central part of her strategy to win several states holding contests Feb. 5, including California, Arizona and New Mexico.

___

Associated Press writers Nedra Pickler and Mike Baker in South Carolina and Ann Sanner in Washington contributed to this report.

Comments

[moonjumper]

The Clintons are gutter politicians.

[AnninCA]

I think that Clinton's reasonable perspective lightened people up. The audience in Myrtle Beach DID get a kick out of the debate.

Obama said he was going to be confrontation, so Hillary is correct. He decided to attack at the debate. And he did.

And now it's up to voters as to what they think about that.

I found him ineffectual, but I'm a big Hillary supporter. So her ability to be inflappable while under direct fire tickled me. If he thinks he's going to shake her tree, think again.

The big news to me is this stupid Truth Squad story.

Good grief, the victim talk is really pathetic.

The tag-teaming Edwards and Obama did to Hillary isn't so much fun when he's being tag-teamed.

Obama has a problem being fair-minded.

[VogonsCryptolect]

OT

Why are posts on the Gaza story subject to approval?

[WesSmith]

The assertion that Hillary has no experience is silly. She's got thirty-plus years in the business of Clintonian cut-throat politics. And it shows. The only question now is whether the electorate will sicken of these tactics before the election in November. I suggest that they will. If they do, Democrats will only have themselves to blame. They have a candidate in Obama that could re-make the image of the party, one that could re-invigorate the party by bringing in millions of new voters who were previously apathetic.

[Superbus]

I would consider voting for Obama over a John McCain.

He has more legislative experience than his democrat opponents (one spent two years in the Seanate and then spent 4 years running for President, the other was a White House observer for 8 years and a follower in the Senate for 7 years).

Hillary thinks she is "entitled" to the White House because Bill humiliated her there, over and over again. Crying and sympathy are not good reasons to be elected Hillary.

[Beelzebul]

Bush united the Dems and now this fighting is splitting them apart. And you like it Bill? Who gains from this? Will Obama supporters back Hillary if she becomes the nominee? Will Clinton supporters back Obama if he becomes the nominee?
I'm beginning to seriously doubt it.

And this is looking more and more like the '80 election where Carter and Kennedy riped each other a new asshole only to see Reagan win as a result.

[OhioPlayer]

Continued post:

Of course, fissures which are now on display in battle between Obama and Clinton. For example, Clinton and her supporters' argument that Obama is not "experienced" is grounded in the thinking - not expressed in straightforward manner but there nonetheless - that Obama should "wait his turn". Because when you really analyze their experience, Clinton has only a MARGINAL edge and this is only because she is older and her "experience" has been on a national stage. But Obama way exceeds her in judgment, leadership that inspires, and most importantly honesty, integrity, and character; all of which are more central than "experience" to what it takes to be an effective president. Further, Clinton's schtick of "triangulation" - a euphemism for duplicity - only serves to turn off the Independent voters any Democratic candidate needs to win the general election. But lot of folks, especially Baby Boomer women, do not want to deal with this issue straight-up because that would entail performing critical analysis that would invalidate their worldview. Specifically, there is no way that sexism, albeit oppressive, remotely approaches the racism black folks have endured in this country.

I think Kareem Abdul-Jabbar said it well with his recent comment that Clinton may very well be a good choice, but Obama is the BEST choice; only problem is many folks - both white and black; the latter thinking the white man's ice is colder - are too willing to operate from a racial paradigm. And when black folks call them out for such thinking, then we are accused of "making it racial"; well one of my favorite sayings is "Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining."

[maxstar]

I also like to see them fight. I think it would bring out that Obama is not a real Democrat who respects what Democrats do. Below is a quote from Obama about why Reagan was elected.

"I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing."

The excesses and growth of the government were what the Democrats did. It was Medicare, Civil Rights, Progressive taxation, Government Regulation of the economy. Calling them excesses is Republican language. Most Democrats didn't think they went far enough. And the "clarity" was against the honest soul searching that Americans had after Vietnam and Watergate of our place in the world. And lets not forget that Reagan's rose colored glasses made those suffering from aids invisible.

[OhioPlayer]

Continued post:

Of course the Populist Party platform went on to become dominant, implemented by the Democratic party from Woodrow Wilson to FDR, through LBJ. It was also in this formative period that the South developed a MYTHOLOGY best expressed in Margaret Mitchell's "Gone with the Wind" just a stylized version of "Birth of a Nation." And not coincidentally, during this same period, Ida B. Wells had no success in persuading white women organizations - primarily Northern and middle-class in nature; precursors to the modern feminist movement - to speak out against the rampant lynching going on in the South. And not coincidentally, in present times, just as many Northern women look to the main character of GWTW, Scarlet O'Hara, as an archetypal heroine.

As great as MLK was, the primary problem with his rhetoric was that it did not address the economic aspect - more central than the political; Jim Crow was a political system established to reinforce the economic system of sharecropping - of racism. Bayard Rustin constantly took King to task over his lack of focus on economic issues; in fact, the March on Washington was initially planned to express concern over poverty. And of course King was just beginning to address economic issues when he was assassinated; indeed, he was in Memphis to support garbage workers union comprised of many blacks. Further, in years subsequent to 1968, identity groups, in particular feminists, appropriated the Civil Rights movement's rhetorical approach, especially that of King's "Dream" speech, which while great in concept, only served to cover deep fissures in the progressive agenda.

[OhioPlayer]

Throughout this blog, lot of folks continue to speak of black folks planning to vote for Obama as though they want to simply because he's black. This logic is ridiculous and reveals the soft bigotry of those who subscribe to this thinking. Obama is well-qualified and inspirational in a manner not seen since RFK and the fact that he happens to be black is only icing on the cake.

In the 2001 book "The Metaphysical Club" author Louis Menand writing on the development of Pragmatism in the late 19th century by William James and John Dewey writes "For many white Americans after 1865, the abolitionists were the century's villains - not only because they were thought to have been responsible for the war, but because they and their heirs were thought to have been responsible for the humiliation of the South during Reconstruction....In a time when the chance of another civil war did not seem remote, a philosophy that warned against the idolatry of ideas was possibly the only philosophy on which a progressive politics could have been successfully mounted."

He continues "It is possible to go a little farther, and to say that the price of reform in the United States between 1898 and 1917 was the REMOVAL (emphasis added) of the issue of race from the table. When the Populist Party was founded in 1892 with a platform that included demands for an income tax, government ownership of the railroads, and laws to protect unions, its leaders set out to recruit black voters. By 1906 the Populists had become the party of white supremacy."

He continues, "White Americans were free to appropriate the rhetoric of abolition and emancipation, but they were not free to apply it to the situation of black Americans. This was a fact of life Debs (Eugene) knew perfectly well; for although all Pullman sleeping car porters were African-American, none of them participated in the boycott, because the American Railway Union, Deb's own organization, did not admit blacks."

[SEQUOIABISON]

Maybe back in the old days when Bill was growing up near Little Rock Arkansas it was unheard of for a black man to talk back to a white person especially a white woman, this could result in a lynching.

Apparently we are now seeing the real Bill Clinton; arrogant, ruthless and willing to lie and compromise his integrity in his pursuit to gain power again.

In essence what he is saying is that this black upstart, this boy, who he claims has no experience, should know his place.

He wants to subtly remind everyone that people like Obama used to serve them their meals when they occupied the white house, how dare he challenge his entitlement to return to power.

The Clintons are trying to use Obamas polite gentlemanly approach to politics against him.

They strike out at him with innuendos and outright distortions of his statements and they know they create a situation where he is damned if responds forcefully and damned if he does not respond at all.

And Wild Bill goes before the camera and with that adulterous smirk on his face lies to us once again, (I did not have sex with that woman), and I did not distort Mr. Obamas position regarding Reagan.

Hillary has already alienated about 50 percent of the country, republican voters who say they could never vote for her, and her latest Karl Rove tactics is beginning to alienate about 50 percent of the liberal progressive votes.

My complacency in politics, when it looked like it was definitely going to be a race between Hillary and McCain or Rudy has been transformed into “Hope” that Obama could actually win this thing.

Obama you make me proud to be an American again, I have not been this enthusiastic about politics since JFK held office.

If Bill had shown this kind of ferocity against the Iraq war as he now shows against his wifes political rival Barack I might have been able to support them again, but his condescending arrogance has turned me against them.

[JoJoKewl]

Superbus (See profile | I'm a fan of Superbus)
John McCain, I see as a wolf in sheep's clothing. I don't trust him. McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy, tax policy and his extreme leftist view of "manmade" global climate change.

This is good. Bash McCain - go for Slick Mitt. This is what needs to happen on the Repub side.

[gallo146]

FROM ABC NEWS
Sen. Clinton twisted this into: "I have to say, you know, my leading opponent the other day said that he thought the Republicans had better ideas than Democrats the last ten to fifteen years."
That's not what Obama said.
And in Buffalo, N.Y., former President Bill Clinton twisted this into Obama "said President Reagan was the engine of innovation and did more, had a more lasting impact on America than I did. And then the next day he said, 'In the 90s the good ideas came out from the Republicans. Which it'll be costly maybe down the road for him because it's factually not accurate.”
What's factually not accurate is what President Bill Clinton said.
I know he wants his wife to beat Obama. And it seems that unleashing the Big Dog seems to be working for the Clinton campaign.

Perhaps some voters are even touched by his passion.
But let's be clear -- Bill Clinton is spreading demonstrably false information.
There's winning ugly, and there's winning with honor.

[eahce]

Yes it is better that they waste time bickering instead of adressing the issues crippling this country today that bubba helped get us into. If our future is in these these despicable peoples hands we are in very deep trouble. bubba and billaty occupied the white house for eight years, didn't they do enough damage.
I was with obama until he made a certain overseas trip.
I believe if Ron Paul is not elected this country and ninety five percent of it's citizens are DOOMED.

[OneAmerica]

OBAMA All THE WAY.

Glory, Glory, Hallelujah, Truth will prevail.

Bill Clinton's finger is as crooked as his character.