It is difficult to decide which political party Bill Clinton thinks he belongs to after he praised McCain and Palin, showed his "tepid" support for Obama and now he asserted that Democrats resisted standards for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
NewsBusters caught a segment from a video shown over at ABC's
Political Radar in an article titled "
Bill Clinton: Don't 'Overly Parse' McCain Request to Delay Debate," and within the video embedded at the article, at the 2 minute 45 second mark in the discussion dealing with the economy, ABC's Chris Cuomo asked Bill Clinton if Nancy Pelosi's recent statements were "playing politics," and Bill Clinton's answer has taken many by surprise.
Chris Cuomo, ABC News: A little surprising for you to hear the Democrats saying, "This came out of nowhere, this is all about the Republicans. We had nothing to do with this." Nancy Pelosi saying it. She signed the '99 Gramm Bill. She knew what was going on with the SEC. They're all sophisticated people. Is that playing politics in this situation?
Bill Clinton: Well, maybe everybody does that a little bit. I think the responsibility the Democrats have may rest more in resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress or by me when I was President to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
It is no surprise that Clinton would give his opinion on the economic crisis facing us today, even to the point of telling people not to read to much into John McCain's suggestion about postponing the first of the presidential debates on Friday, saying
"We know he didn't do it because he's afraid because Sen. McCain wanted more debates," he continued on to say "
You can put it off a few days the problem is it's hard to reschedule those things. I presume he did that in good faith since I know he wanted -- I remember he asked for more debates to go all around the country and so I don't think we ought to overly parse that."
His comments about McCain and the debates might not have been overly surprising, but what has caught many people's attention is how Clinton is placing much, not all, of the blame for the financial crisis on Democrats, especially this close to the presidential election.
Evidence of this surprise can be found on liberal blogs and forums across the web, such as
Taylor Marsh, who was once known as the hub for anything Hillary, then went on to support Barack Obama after Hillary suspended her campaign.
Marsh says :
WJC is truly testing my patience. There's no doubt he doesn't need to get nasty or partisan, you know, like the old Bill of the 1990s who went on to win two general elections, plus beat off the wingnuts handily. But he could at least choose to quit pontificating and serving up quotes that actually aid the other side. It certainly doesn't help Hillary with the activist base and Obama supporters; you know, those people Bill knows she'll need if this election doesn't turn out so well. Just read some of the comments he's getting from Dems across the web that is beginning to blow back on Hillary, which is what matters to me. Hillary has been nothing but stalwart in her work for Obama. So I'm done biting my tongue, especially after hearing WJC played back on Rush today, who riffed, then dissed the debates, which was *!@&ing infuriating.
Another point about Bill Clinton was his praise for John McCain when he introduced him to speak at the Clinton Global Initiative this morning as shown by
Fox.
Clinton's statement:
I want to say one thing in particular about John McCain in bringing him out here. When most people in his party were thinking that global warming was overstated and maybe even admit designed to let people like me who love solar and wind get into it. He decided to look into it and everyone of us by the way with every thorny problem we face need to be in the looking into it business and he and the Junior Senator from New York, with whom I have a passing acquaintance took 2 astonishing trips. One to your state to the point barrel of Alaska, the northern most community in the United States,” Clinton said referring to Palin, “where the Eskimos told them they thought their way of life was coming to an end because of changes in the climate and one to the northern most settlement on Planer Earth. It’s on an island 600 miles north of Norway above the Arctic Circle where they study the changes in the planet where there were signs on their cabin don’t go out at night without a gun or a light or the polar bears will eat you.”
Clinton went on to say
"The point I want to make is there were any votes on this in Arizona. He just wanted to know and they dragged along some very skeptical Republican senators who now are prepared to vote for some kind of bipartisan legislation which will put America in a position to be a part of what is coming up by 2010 which is figuring out where we go next in the struggle against climate change. That’s what we want from everybody. We want some of us to be on the left, some of us to be on the right but all of us to want to know. John McCain wants to know and I am profoundly grateful to him coming here today.”
LA Times
Top of the Ticket, describes Clinton's words about Obama's speaking to the group later by satellite feed from Florida, was "less warm" and they think Clinton is "hedging his bets," in the race for presidency between Barack Obama and John McCain.
The liberal blogosphere is not very happy with that tidbit of news either as evidenced by progressive sites all over the web.
Yglesias at
Think Progress is dripping with sarcasm when he says
"It sure was nice of Bill Clinton to put important national concerns above petty partisanship by agreeing to host a John McCain campaign speech and help the GOP nominee burnish his bipartisan credentials."
Lawyers, Guns & Money, believes Bill Clintons behavior is "an absolute disgrace."
The New Republics'
The Plank is calling Clinton "The Underminer."
Those are just reactions from the left.
With Clinton's recent appearances on The View and elsewhere, to which Obama supporters have been overtly criticizing him for lavishing praise on Sarah Palin and highlighting his extreme affection and admiration for John McCain at every turn, this all begs the question, has Bill Clinton changed his party affiliation and we just missed the news?
