SAN FRANCISCO - After hearing former U.S. President Bill Clinton criticize her husband, Sen. Barack Obama’s wife cried foul in the increasingly heated battle for the Democratic presidential nomination.
“We knew getting into this race that Barack would be competing with Senator (Hillary) Clinton and President Clinton at the same time,” Michelle Obama said in a fund-raising e-mail.
“What we didn’t expect, at least not from our fellow Democrats, are the win-at-all-costs tactics we’ve seen recently. We didn’t expect misleading accusations that willfully distort Barack’s record.”
Bill Clinton, 61, the U.S. president from 1993-2001, has taken an increasingly aggressive role in campaigning for his wife, a New York senator who is in a tight fight with Obama for the Democratic nomination.
Clinton is well-known for his talents on the campaign trail and is popular among many Democrats, even though he was impeached in 1998 by the House following his affair with a White House intern.
Michelle Obama, 44, has a law degree from Harvard and worked at the University of Chicago Medical Center before her husband, a first-term senator from Illinois, decided to run for president.
She now gives speeches for the campaign, sometimes introducing Obama, other times appearing with politicians such as Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate.
“While Senator Clinton has a former president in her corner, I’ll put my faith in a movement of a whole lot of people who are ready for change,” Michelle Obama said in her letter that sought online contributions of $50.
Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.
- Photo credit: Reuters/Rick Wilking (Michelle Obama during a campaign stop in Las Vegas last week.)
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15 comments so far
The Clintons are too desperate to understand the needs of the American people.Their attacks on Barack erodes the respect they spent years building. CHANGE IS INEVITABLE.
- Posted by WILLIAM .EThis was expected no matter how respectable the two sides were.
If one recalls, Obama’s wife had started mudslinging Clinton long before the primaries began. So she has been “taking on the Clintons” since before the primaries; her word is not so reliable as hearing it from Obama himself.
I believe the attacks are distorted by the media, one: the republicans are contesting Clinton (why not Obama?) do they fear the real change Clinton might implement?
I think Bill should step down and let Hilary take charge of her own campaign. We don’t need any the former president, he said himself that his politics are rusty, we need Hilary who has been in it all along and never stopped.
- Posted by A.AAs well as Michelle should leave the politics to her husband. The public should only concern themselves on what the candidates, did, do and propose. We’re not voting for Bill Clinton or Michelle Obama, the ballots are marked with Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton.
Who really wants dynastic Presidencies in this country? Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton? I cannot think of anything worse for this country than a Clinton getting elected (well maybe Mike Huckabee). Come on people, in one election we can change the entire perspective of America around the world. I am voting Obama. As much as Billary says they will change things, I can’t see that happening. I only see another 8 years of partisan bickering.
- Posted by DanThe people that have who are all wrongly accusing the Clintons to be the attackers and poor old innocent Obama to be on the defensive. Lets get real here.
Obama was the one who first viciously and aggressively started to attack Hillary during the debates a couple of months back … funny how everyone has conveniently forgotten about this. If you want the proof, go back and look at the debates, if this is about tit for tat, then he started it. Also, it was the Obama camp who shamefully turned race into an issue by attempting to distorte what Hillary had said about Martin Luther King and Lyndon B Johnson … again, funny how everyone has conveniently forgotten about this.
It seems Obama is allowed to get away with saying anything but the Clintons are not.
Im fed up with all the hypocrits who are blind to the reality that Obama and his camp are the real ones playing a dirty campaign and prefer to jump on the Clintons for everything they say. It is no wonder Bill Clinton is losing his cool lately, its one rule for them and another for Obama.
I seriously hope Hillary Clinton wins the nomination, she deserves it and will do the best job. Obama talks a lot about change, but he has little substance or experience and people are foolish for buying into his hype.
- Posted by SteveThe Clintons are devious people. They are smart as hell and dont get me wrong Billary would make a good president. They started the whole race thing up to corner Obama and make him seem One dimensional. They are not racist, they are just good at changing the conversation. How can you say that Obama stated the fight at all??? He may have attacked Billary on the issues, but she is the one who started saying things like “fairy tales” and “false hopes”.
Again I just want to stress my point that electing a Clinton would be 8 more years of partisan bickering. It is not thier fault, and I think Bill was a wonderful President. But dynasties in the White House do not and will not bring on real change.
- Posted by DanLife is Easier Than We Are Making It
I’ve been hoping some candidate would embrace real change, one that would really solve world problems and prevent future ones. So far, the Democrats and Republican have ignored real change. What they are offering is only a change in leadership.
The goal is not employment; it is retirement in a garden paradise. That solves world problems of global warming fears, pollution, wars,
famine, poverty, boder disputes, diseases, equality, true social security and true freedom.
If we started today to turn toward making a garden paradise of edible landscaping and useful pets for fresh unpolluted foods for healthy
bodies, it would be a very short time when all our dreams would come true.
The goal is a garden of Eden, remember? God really does have solutions to problems we created by ignoring His wisdom. See Leviticus 26 to know the past, the present and the future according to the world of God.
Marie Devine
- Posted by Marie DevineI absolutely agree with Steve. The position of the United States of America is to be filled with the most competent candidate based on merits. If we use “race” when it is convenient, and start adopting double standards based on race, it becomes extremely difficult for this country to move past that issue.
We all have equal rights in this country. If we all treasure and promote that belief and practice it consistently, there is no need to bring “race” into any issue to gain advantage or win points.
Compete fairly. Don’t use race to win emotional votes. Don’t present yourself as a victim when there has been no crime. Don’t accuse others of committing a crime that you are also equally guilty of.
- Posted by Thom KnightIt appears to me that we seem to be missing a key point about what the Clintons have done: race-baiting. It does not matter that they have had some sort of positive relationship with African Americans in the past, it matters that they have stooped to casting Obama as a race candidate. With this done, the hidden obverse is that Clinton is also a race candidate for White folk. The message is “vote for me because he’s Black and I’m White.” It is an appeal to what is darkest in the American soul. I was a Clinton supporter until this. I thought that she had some good things to bring to the White House and that the country would be in good hands. I saw her husband as a respectable counselor and aide. But now with this race ugliness that the Clintons have exploited, I have changed my mind. I will be voting for Obama. I like his wife and family. He has been remarkably restrained in his retorts to the Clinton negative campaign. Yes, he has hit back. But I can see it in his face that he does not enjoy it nor approve of it. Hillary on the other hand seems to relish it. Her husband clearly is enjoying it. I cannot vote for a team that enjoys race-baiting. I simply cannot do that.
- Posted by Ely DorseyGee the Clintons mud sling. I think the Dems. need to wake up the Clintons are hiding in bushes and picking through the trash. Hillary is fond of mentioning Obama inexperence ok then explain why you and a former president are have such difficulty dipatching him. The answer is hiliary is un-electable.
- Posted by Jon Coxi think the Clintons should have shame atleast,this is all about the aiowa win for Obama,now that they see poeple are responding to Obama they decide to get dirty;i just lost the respect i once had for Bill.if Hillary can’t run her own show,how do you expect her to be in chabge in the white house;GO OBAMA,you far too smart for them….we need you…
- Posted by stephenIt is funny how everyone is getting into the politics of mudslinging. I find it amusing to see how desparation has brought the true character of the nominees. To be REAL, politics is a dirty game of lies and misconseption. All of them have something dirty and have alterior motives that differ from ours but we as a people have to decide on the best of evils and pick what we can live with. There is no one, even Jesus, that can please everyone.
To get the facts right Obama did not bash Clinton but only said what every other democratic nominee, and most everybody, said about Hillary. She is a political powerhouse with all the virtues and vices thus functions no different than what we had seen in washington for the last 12years. At first Clinton was so confident the she will win so she did not response to it but after losing in Iowa she got desparate and showed what she really like. What Obama and Edwards brought to the table was something new and that is why they beat her there. They touch on what American wants. They are in touch with the American people but Hillary is not. Hillary may have experience but what she brings to the table is what the average American is tried of. I know I am. In fact, her change in tactics has expose her true colors, SHE WILL DO ANYTHING GET BACK INO THE WHITE HOUSE regadless of who she destroys to get there. I personally find that very scary! I actually back her before but now I have to watch more closely. Please remember that they are all human and capable of failing us all again but we can not continue to do the same thing and expect different result. Lets give hope and change a chance. Moreover may the best “person” win!
- Posted by Unbias6547Ely, thanks for your thorough analyses. I dont understand why some people do not understand the strategy clintons been using. They intentionally trigger racial motive so that the people would be emotionally divided in such a way to secure a majority white vote. It is unluikely at this stage they use such a 20th century to just win the Whitehouse. Do Americans so blind to think that Clinton who spent nearly 10years in the senate with out any negating foreign (homeland) policy to the Bush adminstration would bring any change!
- Posted by baleyObama’s team did NOT pull the race card after Hillary’s Martin Luther King comment. She said it, and some African American leaders were offended. I know it might be hard for people like Steve to tell black folk apart, but I defy anyone to show Barack Obama calling Hillary or anyone a racist.
- Posted by JoannaI will never forget the shock of hearing the Lewinski story on the day the news broke, nor the stun of hearing Hillary Clinton defending her husband and denying the plausibility of it, which she initially did. Having naively believed her to be the beleaguered and forgiving wife of a man whose emotional development had been seriously arrested, I suddenly realized she was rather a liar for whom marriage was just a business partnership. Nothing they have done since has dissuaded me from this view. Perhaps the only thing that could restore in me the smallest modicum of respect for them would be their departure from public life to go away and take care of their problems. Their admirers are deceived. Wake up, Democrats. Vote Obama.
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