Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., told South Carolina's The State newspaper that former President Bill Clinton and his wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, are lying about him and his record purposefully.
“There is a concrete strategy by the Clintons,” Obama said.
Any objective review of how Bill and Hillary Clinton have been twisting comments Obama made about Ronald Reagan and the Republican party would concur.
As we've previously reviewed, Obama, asked by the editorial board of the Reno Gazette-Journal, how his being the nominee might help down-ballot candidates, such as Senators and Congressmen, get elected, said: "I think that we're shifting the political paradigm here. And if I'm the nominee, I think I can bring a lot of folks along on my coattails. You know, there's a reason why in 2006, I made the most appearances for members of Congress. I was the most requested surrogate to come in and campaign for people in districts that were swing districts, Republican districts where they wouldn't have any other Democrat.
"That was based on their read of the fact that, you know what, this is somebody who can reach out to independents and Republicans in a way that doesn't offend people…I don't want to present myself as some sort of singular figure. I think part of what's different are the times.
"I do think that, for example, the 1980 election was different. I mean, I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that, you know, Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. They felt like, you know, with all the excesses of the 60's and the 70's and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating and he tapped into what people were already feeling. Which is, people wanted clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamic and entrepreneurship that had been missing, alright? I think Kennedy, twenty years earlier, moved the country in a fundamentally different direction. So I think a lot of it just has to do with the times.
"I think we're in one of those times right now. Where people feel like things as they are going aren't working. We're bogged down in the same arguments that we've been having, and they're not useful. And, you know, the Republican approach, I think, has played itself out. I think it's fair to say the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last ten, fifteen years, in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom. Now, you've heard it all before. You look at the economic policies when they're being debated among the Presidential candidates and it's all tax cuts. Well, you know, we've done that, we tried it. That's not really going to solve our energy problems, for example. So, some of it's the times. And some of it's, I think, there's maybe a generation element to this, partly. In the sense that there's a, I didn't did come of age in the battles of the 60's. I'm not as invested in them.
"And so I think I talk differently about issues. And I think I talk differently about values. And that's why, I think we've been resonating with the American people."
You can watch the whole thing HERE.
Sen. Clinton twisted this into: "I have to say, you know, my leading opponent the other day said that he thought the Republicans had better ideas than Democrats the last ten to fifteen years."
That's not what Obama said.
And in Buffalo, N.Y., former President Bill Clinton twisted this into Obama "said President Reagan was the engine of innovation and did more, had a more lasting impact on America than I did. And then the next day he said, 'In the 90s the good ideas came out from the Republicans. Which it'll be costly maybe down the road for him because it's factually not accurate.”
What's factually not accurate is what President Bill Clinton said.
I know he wants his wife to beat Obama. And it seems that unleashing the Big Dog seems to be working for the Clinton campaign.
Perhaps some voters are even touched by his passion.
But let's be clear -- Bill Clinton is spreading demonstrably false information.
There's winning ugly, and there's winning with honor.
Does it matter? Or is all fair in politics and war?
-- jpt
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