Bill Clinton: Obama No 'Fairy Tale'

[jefferson_dem]

Source: AP

Bill Clinton: Obama No 'Fairy Tale'
58 minutes ago

NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Bill Clinton says his comment about Barack Obama telling a "fairy tale" about opposing the war in Iraq has been misconstrued as a criticism of the senator's run for the Democratic nomination.

"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."

The former president, speaking Monday at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., had accused Obama of misrepresenting himself on the Iraq war. Clinton suggested that while Obama had spoken out against the war in 2002 while he was an Illinois state senator, Obama had moderated his anti-war stance during his 2004 U.S. Senate campaign.

<SNIP>

Clinton said black voters had a hard choice between the rival senators.

"If you decide to vote for Senator Obama, I respect you, because it is a source of enormous pride in the African-American community, and it should be. He is an impressive man," Clinton said.

<SNIP>

Read more: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jIPjLy2zdP2UFpnZcyg2...

[Demeter]

1. Gotta Wonder Who Bill Is Actually Going to Vote For

Talk about praising with faint damns.

[DJ13]

2. Gee Bill, I think what you meant depends on

.....the definition of "fairytale"..........

[CatWoman]

3. this is just like the non story about Kerry calling the soldiers "dumb"

nothing to see here folks; move right along.

[Hillary2008.]

4. .

yup

[Mithreal]

10. It's a nonstory but still a curiosity with regards to former President

Clinton and his loose campaigning style. He's the guy that argued over the meaning of the word 'is' afterall. The idea of his sometimes hurting more than helping his wife's campaign is real. This will be the first spouse of a President ever elected in the US and will definitely be a source of great controversy to historians.

[KAZ]

19. Wow, what a post! Such deep thoughts!

And that meaning of "is" stuff! Man, can I have your autograph?

[Mithreal]

24. Thanks for the snarky(?) comment and I will admit to being

relatively new to Progressive discussions but I was merely expressing my opinion. I can remember reading things you have written and liking them but this confuses me. You have to admit the former President is brilliant and very careful with words but has said some stupid things lately. I still like him and am not trying to parrot anyone's talking points, but maybe I have, if so I apologize for repeating a destructive idea.

[rateyes]

5. I'm sorry folks, but I gotta say that the Big Dog

just lied out his ass.

[ZinZen]

7. Yeah, well he has a pattern of that

and I voted for Big Dog twice. I like him a hell of alot more in 1992 than present day power monger. He lied out of his ass because he has heard that African Americans are pissed off about his comments and other race based comments coming out of the Clinton's campaign.


edit for spelling

[CatWoman]

9. the only people making this out to be a big deal

are people wanting it to be a big deal.

[karlrschneider]

15. And there are quite a few who REALLY want it to be a big deal!

[CatWoman]

8. lied about what????

that's one of the problems with this place - mountains and molehills abound.

[Mithreal]

11. Molehills are only a small sign of what's going on below

If we can see the molehills than you can bet that the Republicans can too. Leave them to make the mountains out of them and I would add that the former President needs to tighten up his message. His wife is running for President of the United States after all and he should treat it just as seriously as his own prior campaigns. I just get the feeling he is winging it more than he did in the past is all. I am open minded enough to know I might be wrong though, so maybe I am just paying closer attention now and looking at things a lil more critically than I did in the past.

[KAZ]

20. So, by your concern, I take it you're a HRC supporter.

May I be the first on this thread to wish you, and your candidate, the best of luck.

[Mithreal]

21. Not true

Kucinich, Dodd, then Edwards, then Obama and Clinton(undecided which one in my last place).

Kucinich has been marginalized, Dodd is gone.

I support the Democratic Party, but most especially those who call ourselves Progressives.

[rateyes]

22. Anyone who believes that Clinton didn't mean the

"fairy tale" remark as a personal attack against Obama, when Clinton knew that Obama had (unlike him, even though he claimed otherwise) always been against the war, needs to contact me. I need to rid myself of some oceanfront property I own in Nebraska.

[JerseygirlCT]

14. Yup. That's up there with current doozies like

he was always against the Iraq war...

The man has a very slippery grip on the truth sometimes.

[rateyes]

23. He's a politician...

most of them do tend to, at times, play fast and loose with the truth. Again, the Big Dog pulled that lie right out of his ass.

[Mithreal]

6. Really, Bill?

So their vote should be worthy of respect because(?) he is the first viable black candidate?!? Hillary is a source of pride among female-Americans, right? Ridiculous. Obama is an enormous source of pride for ALL Americans, as are many of the other Democratic candidates. I must be misunderstanding him, right?

[earthlover]

12. Clinton's deception....

"The former president, speaking Monday at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., had accused Obama of misrepresenting himself on the Iraq war. Clinton suggested that while Obama had spoken out against the war in 2002 while he was an Illinois state senator, Obama had moderated his anti-war stance during his 2004 U.S. Senate campaign..."

This is I believe deceptive. During 2004 convention, Tim Russert asked Obama about his support for two candidates who supported the war, and whether his opposition to the war would hamper his support for them. He responded by trying to defend Kerry and Edwards and said he wasn't privvy to all the information they had and he couldn't say for sure how he would have reacted. This is the fragment Clinton has pounced on. But he left out the next sentence Obama said, where Obama said THE CASE HAS NOT BEEN MADE YET. So, Obama stands up for the Democratic nominees during the convention as best he could....and Clinton takes it out of context to deliberately distort Obama's position.

This, from the man who just recently said he always opposed the iraq war...irony of ironies.

Regardless of how this turns out, I have lost some respect for President Clinton as a result of his distortions.

[arewenotdemo]

16. If Bill had always been against the war, what must he have said to Hillary

when she defended the occupation of Iraq by saying in 2005 that "we've been in Korea for 50 years"?

[tekisui]

13. "In light of Hillary winning NH, Obama is a fine man."

[orleans]

17. olbermann played a clip of this--clinton was not referring to obama

as a fairy tale--he was talking about something obama had on his website that he took down in 2004 or something re the war, and now it's up again. and that obama was being inconsistent regarding something--and that it was a fairy tale (or a crock of shit, or bullshit, or whatever)

listening to this fairy tale sentence in context made me see how media totally took it out of context.

watch the olbermann rerun tonight.

[sandnsea]

29. He was elected in Nov 2004

He didn't have anything on a senate web site in 2004 because there wasn't one. His Iraq speech was made in 2002 and it isn't appropriate to put it on his Senate web site because it didn't happen while he was in the senate. Here's his Iraq page, I don't see it there.

http://obama.senate.gov/issues/iraq/

[Clanfear]

18. Put a sock in it, Bill

It was obvious what you said. The problem being is that your wife's campaign is no more a fairy tale than Obama's. She has no experience.

[Harper_is_Bush]

27. Actually, what he's explaining is exactly how I interpreted the original comment. You seem a bit

biased, possibly?

It's ok to support one candidate over another, obviously, and to look for ways to criticize the candidate you don't support, but you should always strive to see the truth.

[Skip Intro]

28. Beautiful post. nt

[Political Heretic]

30. I took his comments exactly as he (bill) described them, and don't know how you could to otherwise.

Not even a Clinton supporter. If you read exactly what he said, its hard to honestly come to any other conclusion about what he meant. It's not exactly ambiguous.

To infer something else.... you really have to "want" it.

[Infinite Hope]

25. Can someone please post his original quote in a reply to my message here? n/t

[Skip Intro]

26. And that was the context in which the comment was made. Who's really race baiting here?