I Have A Feeling That Bill Clinton Doesn't Like Ron Fournier All That Much
By Pejman Yousefzadeh Posted in 2008 | Bill Clinton | Hillary Clinton — Comments (2) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Fournier has been a one-man truth squad countering a whole host of Clintonian spin. Here is one instance of the truth squad at work. And here is another.
Read on . . .
Bill Clinton says Sen. Barack Obama is a highly ambitious, political prodigy who is asking voters to "roll the dice" and elect him president.
He should know--that's a fair description of Clinton when he sought the presidency in 1992.
The fact that the former president is stealing a page from the same Republican playbook used against him 15 years ago underscores the threat Obama poses to the candidacy of Clinton's wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.
It also illustrates Clinton's penchant for rewriting history.
"Even when I was a governor and young and thought I was the best politician in the Democratic Party, I didn't run the first time. I could have," Clinton said on PBS's "The Charlie Rose Show," referring to the 1988 presidential campaign.
"And I had lots of Democratic governors encouraging me to. I knew in my bones I shouldn't run--that I was a good enough politician to win, but I didn't think I was ready to be president," Clinton said.
While there may be some truth to that statement, Clinton didn't seem at the time to lack confidence in his abilities as governor or a potential president. He was worried about rumors of infidelity, some which were investigated by his own staff, and privately expressed doubts about whether he could win in 1988.
"He's being a little disingenuous," said Art English, a political science professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
Ya think? Perhaps this will be the subject of the next Fournier column:
Former President Bill Clinton said Monday that the first thing his wife Hillary will do when she reaches the White House is dispatch him and his predecessor, President George H.W. Bush, on an around-the-world mission to repair the damage done to America's reputation by the current president — Bush's son, George W. Bush.
"Well, the first thing she intends to do, because you can do this without passing a bill, the first thing she intends to do is to send me and former President Bush and a number of other people around the world to tell them that America is open for business and cooperation again," Clinton said in response to a question from a supporter about what his wife's "number one priority" would be as president.
In a statement sent to CNN Tuesday afternoon, former President Bush’s chief of staff Jean Becker said that he “wholeheartedly supports the President of the United States, including his foreign policy. He has never discussed an ‘around-the-world-mission’ with either former President Bill Clinton or Sen. Clinton, nor does he think such a mission is warranted since he is proud of the role America continues to play around the world as the beacon of hope for freedom and democracy.“President Bush is excited about several of the excellent Republican candidates running for president, and looks forward to discussing their candidacy once the Republican nominee is determined.”
Kudos to Fournier! He's usually a pretty reliable mouth piece for the Donks.