That didn't take long.
Just hours after Bill Clinton's well-received Democratic National Convention speech, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's campaign released a new ad hammering President Barack Obama using comments Clinton made in 2008.
"As the economy gets worse, Barack Obama calls on Bill Clinton to help his failing campaign," the voice-over proclaims. The ad stops short of criticizing the popular former president, stating, "He's a good soldier, helping his party's president. But what did Bill Clinton say about Barack Obama in 2008?"
The video then cuts to an out-of-context clip of Clinton in 2008, who at the time was campaigning for his wife Hillary in a primary contest against Obama. In the segment, Clinton says, "Give me a break. This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen."
The voice-over continues, "23 million Americans struggling for work. A middle class falling further behind," before replaying Clinton's "give me a break" line.
As the Associated Press reported soon after the 2008 comments, Clinton quickly moved to clarify his statement, saying that he was criticizing Obama on his Iraq war stance:
"There's nothing 'fairy tale' about his campaign. It's real, it's strong, and he might win," Clinton said in a phone interview for the Rev. Al Sharpton's Radio One network talk show.
Clinton said his "fairy tale" remark on the eve of the New Hampshire primary _ won by his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton _ was only intended to describe Obama's claim to have exercised better judgment about the war, not as a sign of "personal disrespect."
In the original clip, Clinton explains:
"It is wrong that Senator Obama got to go through 15 debates trumpeting his superior judgment and how he had been against the war in every year, enumerating the years, and never got asked one time, not once: well how could you say that when you said in 2004 you didn't know how you would've voted on the resolution? You said in 2004 there was no difference between you and George Bush on the war, and you took that speech you're now running on off your website in 2004, and there's no difference in your voting record and Hillary's ever since. Give me a break. This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen."
The full Romney campaign advertisement can be viewed at the top of this article.
WATCH CLINTON'S FULL 2008 COMMENTS BELOW (via Talking Points Memo):
Before You Go
