The Clinton Camp Unbound

[babylonsister]

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/the-clinton-camp-unbound/

January 8, 2008, 4:27 pm
The Clinton Camp Unbound

By Kate Phillips

snip//

It feels like part of the thematic message the campaign was putting out. Mrs. Clinton saying there were talkers and doers, to her having to walk back comments she made about Martin Luther King Jr.’s impact on civil rights legislation that literally diminished his historic role– (oh yeah, he was a great speaker but it actually takes a president to get things done). Then of course, her getting all misty-eyed much earlier yesterday as she talked about how committed she was to the campaign and to events.

Mr. Obama was asked about this outburst by Mr. Clinton earlier today. Courtesy of Jeff Zeleny, here’s the reply: “I understand they’re frustrated right now. I suspect that they’ll both try to get back on track in terms of the strategy for them to do better than they feel they’re doing right now.”

As for Mr. Clinton’s pounding away at Mr. Obama’s war stances over the years, Mr. Obama said: “But I think Tim Russert answered Bill Clinton this morning. Every point that he raised was a question that had been answered _ had been asked and answered, not only on “Meet the Press” but repeatedly.

It is a little frustrating for the president to _ the former president _ to continually repeat this notion that somehow I didn’t know where I stood in 2004 about the war. He keeps on giving half the quote. I was always against the war. The quote he keeps on feeding back was an interview on Meet the Press at the National Convention when Tim was asking, `Given your firm opposition to the war, what do you make of the fact that your nominee for president and vice president didn’t have that same foresight.’ And obviously I didn’t want to criticize them on the eve of their nomination. So I said, `Well, I don’t know what _ you know, I wasn’t in the Senate. I can’t say for certain what I would have done if I was there. I know that from where I stood the case was not made.’ He always leaves that out.

“And you know, I understand why he’s frustrated. But at some point since we’ve corrected him repeatedly on this and he keeps on repeating it, you know it tells me that he’s just more interested in trying to muddy the waters than actually talk fairly about my record.”

Mr. Obama hasn’t commented on all the remarks made last night by Mrs. Clinton about Dr. King and L.B.J. and civil rights, et al.

We’ll be back later with more reaction, we’d bet as the primary results start rolling in.