'I've learned a lesson'

2008-02-09 16:46

Washington - Former President Bill Clinton says he has learned a valuable lesson from the political frenzy that arose over his remarks as he campaigned for his wife: he can promote her presidential candidacy, but he is not free to defend her.

Clinton also said that everything he said in South Carolina about Illinois Senator Barack Obama was "factually accurate", but a lot that has been said about what he said is "factually inaccurate".

"I think the mistake that I made is to think that I was a spouse like any other spouse who could defend his candidate," Clinton said, referring to his wife, New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is waging a hard-fought contest with Obama for the Democratic nomination.

"I think I can promote Hillary but not defend her because I was president. I have to let her defend herself or have someone else defend her," Clinton said in an interview with NBC News as he was campaigning for his wife on Thursday in Portland, Maine.

On the eve of the New Hampshire primary, Clinton called Obama's celebrated opposition to the Iraq war "a fairy tale", suggesting that while Obama had spoken out against the war in 2002 as an Illinois state senator, Obama had moderated his anti-war stance during his 2004 US Senate campaign.

Later, campaigning for his wife in South Carolina, Clinton suggested an Obama victory there would be a racial one, like the Reverend Jesse Jackson's was 20 years ago.

Critics accused Clinton of injecting race into the Democratic campaign.

"A lot of the things that were said were factually inaccurate," Clinton said. "I did not ever criticise Senator Obama personally in South Carolina. ... But I think whenever I defend her, I, a), risk being misquoted, and, b), risk being the story. I don't want to be the story."

While he has toned down his defence of his wife, Clinton said he does not intend to stop campaigning for her even though some critics have suggested it is inappropriate for a former president to take sides in a nomination race.

"I would be campaigning for her if we were not married," Clinton said. "She's the best qualified person to be president I've ever had a chance to support, and I feel strongly about it. And I think there's nothing wrong with me saying that."

If his wife should be elected president, Clinton said he would not interfere with her work or her advisers.

"I will do what I'm asked to do," Clinton said. "I will not be in the Cabinet. I will not be on the staff full-time. I will not in any way interfere with the work of a strong vice president, strong secretary of state, strong secretary of treasury.

"I will do what we've always done for each other," he said. "I will let her bounce ideas off me. I will tell her what I think."

- AP