WASHINGTON (CNN) — Democratic presidential frontrunner Sen. Hillary Clinton is reportedly receiving advice on Iraq from an unlikely source: President Bush.
White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten tells The Examiner's Bill Sammon that the president has been urging the New York senator and some of the other candidates not to "get yourself too locked in where you stand right now. If you end up sitting where I sit, things could change dramatically."
According to the newspaper, Bolten said the president wants to see to it that his Iraq policy continues, at least in part, even if a Democrat moves into the White House in January of 2009.
"He wants to create the conditions where a Democrat not only will have the leeway, but the obligation to see it out," Bolten tells Sammon for his new book, The Evangelical President.
According to the report, the president is mostly distributing his advice through top aides.
Bush himself told Sammon he plans on making the hard decisions before his successor arrives and added, “And then that person is going to have to come and look at the same data I’ve been looking at, and come to their own conclusion.”
The Clinton campaign has yet to return CNN's request for comment.
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