November 28, 2007
Trigger Happy
Bill Clinton -- in a much ballyhooed return to Iowa yesterday to stump for his wife -- made one strange assertion about his position on the Iraq war and also sized up the GOP field.
First the fun stuff ...
Clinton, in DeWitt, said that he's had "a lot of dealings" with Rudy Giuliani and that an HRC/Giuliani match-up would "certainly be an interesting pair," reports NBC/NJ's Carrie Dann.
The former president said that he knows Fred Thompson well and added, "I used to send him cigars."
Clinton praised Mitt Romney for his support of Americorps but said he's "asking for forgiveness for everything he did as governor." He joked about Romney's efforts to distance himself from some of the policies he advocated as governor of Massachusetts, "If you were the governor of Hades, you'd act like the devil, too."
John McCain, Clinton said, "was mauled in a merciless, revolting way" by his Republican opponent (GWB, of course) in 2000.
He added a conciliatory note (false???) ... "I've reached an age when I'm not mad with anybody anymomre. I just wanna get things done."
But this story today in the NYT shows that he is continuing to make getting things done (on the campaign trail anyway) a bit difficult for his candidate wife.
"During a campaign swing for his wife, former President Bill Clinton said flatly yesterday that he opposed the war in Iraq 'from the beginning' — a statement that is more absolute than his comments before the invasion in March 2003.
"Before the invasion, Mr. Clinton did not precisely declare that he opposed the war. A week before military action began, however, he did say that he preferred to give weapons inspections more time and that an invasion was not necessary to topple Saddam Hussein.
"At the same time, he also spoke supportively about the 2002 Senate resolution that authorized military action against Iraq.
"Advisers to Mr. Clinton said yesterday that he did oppose the war, but that it would have been inappropriate at the time for him, a former president, to oppose — in a direct, full-throated manner — the sitting president’s military decision.
"Mr. Clinton has said several times since the war began that he would not have attacked Iraq in the manner that President Bush had done. As early as June 2004, he said, “I would not have done it until after Hans Blix finished the job,” referring to the weapons inspections there before the war.
"At the time of those remarks, though, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York was not a presidential candidate, and Mr. Clinton was not campaigning on her behalf. Nor was she running for the nomination against a Democrat who opposed the invasion from the start — Senator Barack Obama of Illinois.
"Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton are in a tight race to win the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3, and Mr. Clinton made his remark in Iowa. One rival Democratic campaign circulated Mr. Clinton’s remark to reporters and, without speaking for attribution, accused him of fuzzing the historical record to make the Clintons appear more antiwar than they actually were at the time."
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton is back in Iowa today for a health care stop in Ankeny. This is a one-stop visit for HRC, and it was added to her sched late Monday evening, Dann reports. The importance of Iowa, and this issue for HRC in Iowa, cannot be overstated. She can't afford any bigfooting from Bill ...
(JENNIFER SKALKA)
Posted at 08:47 AM
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