Bill Clinton Spars With Another Protestor

MSNBC reports Bil Clinton snapped back at an interrupting anti-abortion protestor:

"I gave you the answer. We disagree with you," Clinton said. "You wanna criminalize women and their doctors and we disagree... I reduced abortion... Tell the truth, tell the truth... If you were really pro-life, if you were really pro-life, you would want to put every doctor and every mother as an accessory to murder in prison. And you won't say you wanna do that because you know that because you know that you wouldn't have a lick of political support. Now, the issue is who ... the issue is, you can't name me anybody presently in politics that did more to introduce policies that reduce the number of real abortions instead of the hot air putting out to tear people up and make votes by dividing America."

Comments

[MyThought]

09:29 AM on 02/19/2008

Good for him - bravo. Funny, no one made a big issue out of Reagan dressing down hecklers.

My, my - what double standards.

[MRb1000]

02:16 AM on 02/19/2008

CLINTONS GO HOME!!!!!!!

[MichaelCorleone]

01:07 AM on 02/19/2008

Bravo, Bill.

Keep standing up to these cowards who, in their hypocrisy, claim to believe in the sanctity of life while crying out for the annihilation of all Islamic people.

[NewGenXer]

12:53 AM on 02/19/2008

This protester needed to be protected from Bill Clinton who alledgedly hit the guy. Is Bill having a meltdown when he begins hitting people? That is definitely crazy.

[dax49]

12:38 AM on 02/19/2008

i think bill clinton did a great job. i noticed these signs were being held up by men, which seems a little strange. if they are that concerned retire those tired pieces of meat and get vasectomies. these people were set-ups sent in to cause trouble for clinton, and it didn't work.

[Tellmethetruth]

12:10 AM on 02/19/2008

Sounds like the Secret Service should begin to step in when some of the Obama plants showing up to disrupt Bill Clinton show such hostilities towards the former President. Enough of the verbal violence being done by the Obama supporters.

I want the Secret Service to protect Bill Clinton from this abuse by Obama's supporters, who are not allowing the campaign to be a civil discourse.

Enough!

[elizab1949]

01:21 AM on 02/19/2008

And your 'proof' that this was an Obama plant???? Provide the facts please...not your accusation.

[NickCatal]

08:25 AM on 02/19/2008

Secret service will never step in during these situations unless they feel the protestors are a legitimate and immediate threat to the person(s) they are protecting. If the protesters started running towards the stage the video would have been quite funny :)

[utscha53]

11:45 PM on 02/18/2008

I'm an Obama supporter, but even I agree with Bill here.

[specultr]

01:21 AM on 02/19/2008

Can someone translate:"a lick of political support?"

[acdavidson]

11:44 PM on 02/18/2008

Bill Clinton's position on abortion has always been to make it "safe and legal, but rare." As president, he supported a woman's right to choose, including vetoing the so-called "partial birth" abortion bills passed by Congress. He also supported and ratified, by executive order, the international family planning efforts that Bush I had torpedoed. Bill Clinton does not have to apologize to anyone for his positions on women's rights or choice, least of all to the anti-choice fanatics that show up like dandruff at Senator Clinton's events. Please explain to me just why he, or Hillary for that matter, should continue to smile politely and swallow the crap that such people dish out? Maybe if he and the rest of us in the pro-choice community had told these creeps where to get off a long time ago, women would not now be denied access to safe and legal abortions in 85% of the counties in this country.

[kcflood]

09:48 PM on 02/18/2008

I love bill, he rips those protesters to shreds!!

[LiberalMathProfessor]

09:42 PM on 02/18/2008

To those who reflexively castigate Bill Clinton every time he opens his mouth lately: Bill Clinton happens to fight hogwash with fact, and you anti-intellectuals can't stand it. Wanna know why? Krugman was right! Your Obama-cultist ways don't permit analysis, questions and answers, and fact in opposition to B.S. I'm glad we had a smart President and that he's still smart and won't take crap from bigots. And I don't take crap from bigots like you all either, who find that a truth teller ought to shut up and disappear. The truth is, you don't like Hillary, you're deathly afraid of Bill, and you're busy doing the wave instead of engaging your friends and opponents in healthy dialogue. In a way, you're continuing one of the major techniques of BushCheney... call it intellectual fascism. So there.

[RooneyD]

12:31 AM on 02/19/2008

You're hatefulness exposes yourself more than anything. Nevermind the fact that your "anti-intellectuals" remark contrasts the actual demographic voting pattern; that's not important. You're clearly pretty impressed with yourself, and you fancy yourself quite an intelligent person. What you must not understand is that the more angry and emotionally-charged your arguments, the dumber you sound. Do yourself a favor, and don't spit out your ideas as soon as they come to you.

By the way: I couldn't tell you the last time I heard a real intellectual end an argument with a "So there."

[LiberalMathProfessor]

09:48 AM on 02/19/2008

RooneyD, thanks for proving my point, nearly point-for-point. I rest my case. Now, just go back to the rally and keep on doing the wave, and I'll keep on enjoying the view from the intellectual promontory. So there.

[CaveatMagnusFrater]

10:22 AM on 02/19/2008

President Clinton spoke simple truth plainly. I can't really see laying this assault at the feet of Obama supporters, it's straight out of the control women playbook of religious fanatics.
I'm now supporting Sen. Hillary Clinton. If she loses the nomination to Sen. Barack Obama I'll support him. I'm on my third candidate anyhow. Kucinich, Edwards, Clinton.
What caught my attention is your log-on name and the contrast between what it indicates and your grammar skills. Your and you're are not alternate spellings of the same word. Each has it's own meaning.


mike

[LiberalMathProfessor]

11:15 AM on 02/19/2008

Mike, the layout of replies to replies doesn't make it clear to me to whom you are responding. Nevertheless, I'm with you in that we have to support the nominee this November, no matter our current preferences. My complaint isn't with some anti-abortion protester who tries to take on Bill; I find a problem with anyone from the person-in-the-street to national commentators who just find nothing valuable in what Bill is saying lately, when in fact (again in agreement with you) Bill speaks simple truth plainly. What I don't hear from we Hillary supporters is the hateful carping about Obama; what I do hear from (I hope a minority of) Obama supporters is hateful carping about Bill and Hillary. What's up with that? I'm on my third, too; Biden and Edwards, then Hillary.

[MetalCanuck]

08:43 PM on 02/18/2008

Well if a lady can't keep her figure what rights will they take away next?

[horacekent]

08:38 PM on 02/18/2008

Bill's a cold-sore,.......

...........on the lip of Hillary's campaign.

When he flairs up,.....it tends to be unsightly & embarrasing.

~HK

[Dazedandamazed]

09:45 PM on 02/18/2008

We as a nation have had 232 years of examples of how wives whose husbands are running for President should conduct themselves. The Clintons are in uncharted territory here. Let's try to cut a little slack. Unlike the wives out there. there is nobody for him to copy or a style to paste together.

[trex67]

02:18 AM on 02/19/2008

I'm an Obama supporter, but I fail to see why that should make me a Clinton hater. I will support whichever candidate the Democratic party nominates. And I agree with President Clinton on this one (pushing back against the "pro-life" faction). He clearly did as much as he could to support choice when he was President.

I don't think the protesters were Obama plants as some have suggested, though. The majority of Clinton haters are still sitting on the Republican side of the fence (although a lot of my fellow Obama supporters seem to be in that camp as well...) Everyone should try and stick to the facts, please. Don't be swayed by media hackery. Sadly, HuffingtonPost seems to have taken a strong anti-Hillary position that doesn't bode well for the Democrats if she wins the nomination (just check out the Hillary headlines versus the Obama headlines on this site.) I'm an Obama supporter, too, but not at the cost of four or more years of Republican rule. Please tone down the rhetoric and let the voters decide.

[Boobaloo]

07:20 PM on 02/18/2008

Why do so many white "Christian" MEN have an unhealthy obsession with controlling womens bodies? Seriously, if they really care about babies then stop killing them in Afghanistan & Iraq. Once the fetus is a person, they no longer give a shit, both woman and child are on their own. These same terrorists who spend their waking hours on a womens issue need to concentrate on funding a national daycare system, education for mothers, stipends to suppliment working moms , there are literally thousands of initiatives and programs that can be implemented to prevent abortions instead they wave around their 'abortion kills babies' placards, shoot and kill doctors, blow up clinics, terrorize women and employees and pontificate about fire and brimstone, all the while none of this effects them directly.

Women get abortions for a myriad of devestating reasons, if you want to reduce abortions help the women, help the mothers.

[tcbwriter]

08:14 PM on 02/18/2008

AMEN!!!

[boycottrightwingthings]

06:44 AM on 02/19/2008

I sgree! Abortion to these men is more about controlling women than about the fetus. If it was about the fetus, then they would help women, rather than acting like the Taliban in trying to control their bodies by taking away options like abortion and then going after birth control. I guess it's hard for them to sow their wild oats, when a woman might uproot that oat from her body. It isn't about the women or the fetus, it's about them, and them wanting those roadblocks to women's success and keeping women taking care of kids that they don't want, as punishment for having sex, and it makes me sick. Abortion should be safe and legal for any woman that wants one, period. Thank goodness for pills that a woman can get in most doctors offices now that can give her the option of having an abortion in privacy, without protesters throwing tomatoes at her or screaming things like murdering whore in her face. I went with a friend who was having an abortion, and the mostly men protesting were guilty of real harassment. More women who find this happen to them should take them to court and lock these wackos up; then maybe they would get a life and leave women alone!

[Tankan]

06:46 PM on 02/18/2008

Hellfire! John McCain can take a wobbler so can Bill!

All very presidential!

[escapee]

06:37 PM on 02/18/2008

Gawd, if I see that gigantic finger waving in the air again I'm going to throw up!!

[Tyrione]

10:00 PM on 02/18/2008

Need a garbage sack?