Bill Clinton On Primary: "Freer" To Tell "Truth" Next Year

Bill Clinton talks to the Washington Post from Rwanda. He's still got thoughts about the Democratic primary, but don't expect to hear them for a few months:

In his first extended interview since his wife exited the campaign in defeat, Clinton said he was glad to be back doing international foundation work. "This is my life now, and I was eager to get back to it, and I couldn't be happier," Clinton said in a hotel suite, with three aides looking on.

In a session that lasted more than 45 minutes, Clinton described his role in the 2008 campaign as "a privilege, an honor," and said, "I loved it," but he declined to discuss any of his own possible mistakes, describing them as a distraction. "Next year, you and I and everybody else will be freer and have more space to say what we believe to be the truth" about the primaries, he said.

Clinton volunteered very little praise of Obama, beyond describing him as "smart" and "a good politician" when asked about him toward the end of the interview. He did, however, muse at length about the role that race could play in the general election -- the issue that some of his former black allies angrily accused him of introducing in the Democratic primaries -- as a factor, if not a decisive one.

Comments

[BaltimoreSteve]

Bill Clinton is an adulterer.
Bill Clinton was impeached.
I'd run away from him if I was Barack.
It is time for change, change from Bush and Clintonian politics.
I am glad that Clinton is doing good things now, but his impeachment was a great part of the reason Gore and Kerry lost.
Enough of Bill Clinton.
I wish he'd just shut his lying mouth.

[jeremyemilio]

Boy, you HuffPo moderators delete some strange stuff. Let's try this again:

There"s been a lot of talk by Obama supporters about Clinton's "racist" comments after the SC primaries. Let"s settle this. I would suggest that anyone with any sense understands that the comment comparing Obama"s performance in SC to Jackson"s was simply a (perhaps clumsy) demographics analysis with no racist undertones whatsoever. Obama supporters will all disagree and, at best, will suggest that my interpretation is a matter of (mistaken) opinion. However, unlike Obama supporters, I have concrete evidence to back up my analysis, and here it is: I challenge anyone here to explain why Mitt Romney won the Utah primaries with a landslide 90% of the vote. Watch what you say, now, you wouldn't want to be a religious bigot. Any takers?

[bison2]

Am I the only one who does not see where Clinton"s statements on Obama"s qualifications were so outrages? In fact, I think Clinton"s comments undermine McCain"s experience message. Essentially, Clinton was saying that no one is really ready on day one for the presidency"not even a vice-president. Only being president teaches you how to be president. Then, he refutes the commander in chief test/threshold. He says there is no such test. The U.S. Constitution sets out the qualifications. So, experience doesn"t matter.

[mpflinn]

Bill, it is not about YOU! Lead your foundation's good work and for once stop being the "first victim".

[foreffectivegovernment]

Until another Democratic President is elected, President Bill Clinton is it! Obama is JUST the presumptive Democratic nominee in the 2008 Presidential election. Al Gore was in 2000 and John Kerry was in 2004 and they were the presumptive nominees until the Convention which hasn't occurred yet.
For Progressive Democrats to elevate Obama to leader status without total support from Democratic voters is a distortion of the democratic process.
When Obama is exposed as a mere mortal, the Democratic Party will realize what a mistake they have made in this election and the Clintons will reign again.
When history reveals the truth about this campaign, the truth shall set us free to have a President elected for ability and not because we are trancending race, gender, or age.

[cybersense]

my goodness, what more are you trying to spin here. This is dead.

[OpusIsUnderTheBed]

Bill? Shut up. This year, and next.

[rangem]

slick willy has never told the truth his entire public life and by making that statement he lying to us again

[MyAudacity]

The very saddest thing in all of this is those who really are elitist, presumptious, and inevitable, because of their preconceived inalienable rights, are the ones who have the most problem with Barack Obama's possibility of being President, and they can not see their behavior or their lies as being wrong, for them it is the status quo, it is what they do to win....and anyone who does not understand that, then they are naive, living in a fairy tale, and just don't understand that this is the way things are done. And, if you happen to be African American, and take offense...then you must be the racist, not them....this is the way....white men work.


Duh!

[StopSexismNow]

We were so lucky to have him as President! The country was left in impeccable shape in 2000 when he left office. Bush and his cronies royally screwed us in just the first couple years of Bush taking office. It is amazing how quickly these crooks were able to undo all the good President Clinton did. Whoever gets in to the White House this time around will have a mountain of problems to resolve as a result. I just hope whoever it is is up to the challenge!

[mpflinn]

I can't go with "impeccable". Remember the 2006 mid-term elections.

[cheo]

I am one of those Dems who stuck with Bill throughout the years of empyt investigations and absurd impeachment proceedings. In spite of NAFTA, in spite of the FCC changes....I still stood with the Clintons....and THIS is how he repays us?

[wdw101]

yes

[riverhouse]

We only have his word for it.

[wdw101]

can he tell the truth?

[NotMcCain]

He's going to tell the truth in 2009?

Oh, good! Does that mean we'll get to see the missing 2007 tax returns and the library donors list then? Plus full disclosure of his lobbying for foreign governments and how much he was paid?

Of course, the subtext of his comment is he thinks Obama will lose.

I can't wait for him to have to say, "Thank you, Mr. President".

Happy Birthday, Senator Obama. My -second- $47 donation was just made.

[IGGHY]

Would it be fair to let the minorities to decide whether Bill Clinton's remark was racist or not? If 80% of African Americans were offended enough to vote against a Clinton by a remark from the first black president, that says something unless we assume their opinions don't count. That in turn will be the gravest racist remark anyone can make.

[foreffectivegovernment]

The minorities, (Blacks), were not offended by Bill Clinton's remarks until James Clyburn, Jesse Jackson, Jr., and Ted Kennedy told them to be. Representative John Lewis didn't turn his back on the Clintons until Jesse Jackson, Jr. used threats against him.
African-Americans were bamboozled into supporting Obama over the Clintons by the Chicago Political Machine. Why didn't they recognize the cry for help from one of their own when the Black Democratic Caucus was being intimidated by the Obama Mafia.
"NBC's Andrea Mitchell interviewed Lewis about his decision to switch his endorsement from Clinton to Obama. Lewis told Mitchell that the decision was extremely difficult, "much tougher" than when he helped lead the famous march on Selma, Alabama in 1965.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/27/civil-rights-icon-lewis-o_n_88757.html
Isn't there more to this than electing the "first African-American President of the United States"? Shouldn't this be about who is the best person for the job without Black Pride and White Guilt being introduced into the equation?

[MA4HRC]

I'm black and stil waiting for someone to point out Bill Clinton's "racist" comment. I'm offended by the offended.

[AllaboutME]

Thanks Bill!

April 1985, Governor Bill Clinton signed Act 985 into law, making the birthdates of Martin Luther King Jr. (the preeminent leader of the civil-rights movement) and Robert E. Lee (the general who led the Confederate army) state holidays on the same day. Of course, the word "segregation" never passed Clinton's considerable lips, but the (uncoded) message he was sending to certain of his white constituents could not have be clearer. His support for the Lee day seems as bad " if not worse " than a gaffe at an old man's birthday party and Lott's opposition to an MLK day.

In 1989, then-Gov. Bill Clinton was sued as one of three top Arkansas officials responsible for the intimidation of black voters in his state as part of a legal action brought under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, NewsMax.com has learned.

After he was sued in the late 1980s by the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund for failing to enforce the Voting Rights Act in Arkansas, then-Gov. Bill Clinton suggested to a group of pro-segregation whites that they were being unfairly targeted by civil rights laws as a result of the South's loss in the Civil War, according to one-time Clinton administration Civil Rights Division nominee Lani Guinier.