Bill Clinton on Monday night took a hit at “the awful legacy of the past eight years,” appearing to criticize President Obama, though an aide to the former president said that Clinton was referring to Republican members of Congress.
While pitching Hillary Clinton as the “best change-maker” during a speech in Washington state, Bill Clinton bashed the the last eight years, as well as seven years before then under former President George W. Bush.
“But if you believe we can all rise together, if you believe we’ve finally come to the point where we can put the awful legacy of the last eight years behind us and the seven years before that when we were practicing trickle-down economics and no regulation in Washington, which is what caused the crash, then you should vote for her because she’s the only person who basically has good ideas, will tell you how she’s going to pay for them, can be commander in chief, and is a proven change maker with Republicans and Democrats and independents alike,” he said.
Bill Clinton’s comments quickly attracted scrutiny from conservatives and criticism from Hillary Clinton’s Democratic opponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
Don’t know that I’d call President Obama’s 72 straight months of job growth an “awful legacy.” https://t.co/GUzlY6Wp4h
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) March 22, 2016
A spokesman for Bill Clinton, Angel Urena, then clarified that the former president was referring to Republicans’ attempts to block Obama from enacting his agenda.
“When Republicans controlled the White House, their trickle-down approach drove our economy to the brink of a collapse. After President Obama was elected, Republicans made it their number one goal to block him at every turn,” Urena said in a statement, according to USA Today. “That unprecedented obstruction these last eight years is their legacy, and the American people should reject it by electing Hillary Clinton to build on President Obama’s success so we can all grow and succeed together.”
Watch the clip from Bill Clinton’s speech:
What kind of analysis is this? Bill Clinton slams Obama’s legacy? Are there any of Bill’s words in his speech or this piece to back this up? In light of Hillary’s steadfast defense of the Obama legacy, where does anything in this article make any sense?
Typical Bernie: jump on a few words out of context and ignore the major point being made: the Republicans in Congress have been blocking President Obama whenever they can to the detriment of these United States.
I’ve got to give the Big Dog the benefit of the doubt, but surely he could have been more articulate than that.
This is not good. In a primary where his candidate is hugging the Obama legacy, he should not have put himself anywhere near any statements that advisors need to clarify. Context and truth are secondary when dealing with the press (who let’s be honest were waiting to pounce on him for another “fairy tale” moment, fulfilling the pre-fab narrative “Bill screws up Hilary’s campaign”). And lets not forget a whole day of the last republican convention was devoted to the out of context distortion of “You didn’t build that.” These moments can live on for months. A single moment Hilary has to put “context” on anything someone else said is a moment lost.
one of the things that really irritated me in 2008 was a lot of Bill’s inarticulate and at times ill advised comments supporting Hillary in her first attempt for the nomination… for a smart intelligent politician he has a distressing habit of putting his foot in his mouth…
I’ll support Hillary if Bernie isn’t nominated but it would be really nice if Bill would be a little less vocal at this point in time…