Obama: Time to Confront Bill Clinton over Inaccurate Statements

Posted on 1/23/2008 3:33:00 PM

Democrat Barack Obama says he will confront former President Bill Clinton over inaccurate statements made by the latter while supporting his wife, Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy.

This is what he had to say in an interview on "Good Morning America": "You know the former president, who I think all of us have a lot of regard for, has taken his advocacy on behalf of his wife to a level that I think is pretty troubling. He continues to make statements that are not supported by the facts—whether it's about my record of opposition to the war in Iraq or our approach to organizing in Las Vegas." He also said, "This has become a habit, and one of the things that we're going to have to do is to directly confront Bill Clinton when he's making statements that are not factually accurate.

Among the former president's comments that riled Obama was his assertion that Obama's consistent opposition to the Iraq war was a "fairy tale". Another claim made by Clinton indicated that the union officials in Nevada had coerced members to caucus in support of Obama.

"I understand him wanting to promote his wife's candidacy," Obama said during the interview. "She's got a record that she can run on. But I think it's important that we try to maintain some—you know, level of honesty and candor during the course of the campaign. If we don't, then we feed the cynicism that has led so many Americans to be turned off to politics."

Hillary Clinton's campaign responded to Obama's allegations by saying that he was reacting to his second place position in the caucuses at Nevada.