What did President Clinton say about Obama?
Posted on January 14th, 2008 by ecthompson
One of the reasons that I have decided to add video to my blog posts as often as possible it because video can highlight some things that are murky. My fellow blogger, Texas Liberal, was taking President Bill Clinton to the woodshed for using the phrase “Fairy tale.” Many progressives thought that the President was referring to Obama’s campaign or his theme of hope. I would like to urge my fellow progressives to listen to the whole clip. If you think that President Clinton needs to be taken to the woodshed then I’ll be the first one to go grab him (figuratively speaking, of course). On the other hand, if the media has led us a stray maybe they are the ones that need to be taken to the woodshed.
again, this a big part of the play…
no one is really upset about anything…
hillary and obama 08
I watched this twice and it is not quite what I know I read in more than one place. That said, at the end Mr. Clinton seems to imply that the larger Obama narrative, or maybe the press coverage of Mr. Obama, is what is the fairy tale. Not just his Iraq votes. Maybe this clip has a still broader context.
While I think that in many cases the so-called mainstream media is doing the best it can, I think some of the print accounts of the President Clinton comments could have been more complete.
The woodshed phrase in politics gained fame when Ronald Reagan talked about taking budget director David Stockman to the so-called woodshed after Mr. Stockman made some negative comments about Republican/Reagan policy.
It isn’t like Bill Clinton is Dubya, who does well to get through a sentence without slobbering all over his tie. He’s been around long enough to know he had to make clear that his “fairy tale” comment applied only to Barack Obama’s Iraq record. If in fact it actually did, which now doesn’t even matter. Clinton screwed up, again. Looks to me like between ‘em, Bill & Hil can’t wait to hand Obama the S.C. primary. Suits me. He’s the better candidate anyway.
I hope Obama stays above the fray. The Clintons and their operatives are doing everything they can to give HRC an edge. While this incident seemed like a tempest in a teapot, the effect, like cumulative digs (however unintended) may backfire on Sen. Clinton…
this is only going to get more interesting.