In an interview with PBS News Hour, Bill Clinton completely walked back his comments about Obama criticizing Bain being inappropriate. He said today, [about making Bain an issue being wrong] "Not necessarily. It depends on the facts of the case. That's what I tried to say in the CNN interview. The equity business can be good if you - I've got a friend who buys failing companies, and he tries to turn them around. And he's turned a bunch of them around, but not all of them. So sometimes he tried and failed. The effort was honorable. That's a good thing.”
Yeah right, he said that guy was “Romney” in the CNN interview, but now you are to think he means some other (private equity pirate), but you notice that Slick Willy didn‘t actually say that.
Clinton also tore down Romney’s boast that as President, Romney would immediately declare China a “currency manipulator”, and get tough with them, unlike Obama. Clinton suggested this would collapse the world economy and that it would be far better to apply tariffs on a case by case basis the way Obama has been doing it. He also laid out the stupidity of the Republican austerity plan, and the need for stimulus from the government in times like these. He did this in perfectly simple and sensible language. John Maynard Keynes and FDR are smiling down from heaven.
Why the sudden change of heart? Last week Clinton was telling reporters that as a “private citizen” he had the privilege of saying what ever he wants. Speculation was running wild that Clinton was deliberately sabotaging Obama as he had developed a real hatred for Obama during the 2008 campaign. This would be a believable scenario, since the things Clinton was saying a couple of days ago weren’t believable. They were just billionaire generated talking points.
One small problem popped up for citizen Clinton. He’s not a private citizen. As a condition of Hillary’s employment as Sec State, Bill had to sign a 50 page contract with Obama. This was done precisely because Clinton could be expected to pull this kind of crap when the opportunity arose. Bill apparently isn’t much of a lawyer if he didn’t read it. Obama must have sent some boys down from the Chicago campaign office to read it to him. Bill’s back on the team now. He’s quite good at communicating when he’s properly “motivated.”
