Bill Clinton in 2004 said most politicians "are good people who love their country desperately."

[Eric J in MN]

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0406/14/se.01.html

Most the people I've known in this business, Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, were good people, honest people, and they did what they thought was right. And I hope that I'll live long enough to see American politics return to vigorous debates where we argue who's right and wrong, not who's good and bad.

My experience is, most the people I've known in this work are good people who love their country desperately.

The 2004 remark is similar to his remark today that:

It'd be a great thing if we had an election where you had two people who love this country, who were devoted to the interest of the country and people could actually ask themselves who is right on these issues instead of all this other stuff which always seems to intrude on our politics.

Bill Clinton wasn't calling Obama unpatriotic.

Bill Clinton was speaking out like-he-has-for-years on his own experience at being portrayed as unpatriotic.

George H. W. Bush attacked Bill Clinton in 1992 for having organized a teach-in against the Vietnam War at Oxford.

[XemaSab]

1. O RLY?

"I have repeatedly defended President Bush against the left on Iraq, even though I think he should have waited until the U.N. inspections were over," Clinton said in a Time magazine interview that will hit newsstands Monday, a day before the publication of his book "My Life."

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/06/19/clinton.iraq/index.html

[Eric J in MN]

2. I don't understand what that quote about Iraq is to demonstrate. NT

NT

[EmperorHasNoClothes]

3. If you take today's quote completely out of context, it really does seem that way, doesn't it?

:eyes:

[Eric J in MN]

5. What "context" proves that Bill Clinton was saying Obama is unpatriotic? NT

NT

[ShortnFiery]

4. No way. Bubba was playing that white politician "Southern Strategy" in NC like he did in SC.

Guess what? It won't work now either. Gee Bill, you are campaigning like it's 1995 in 2008. We're on to your game and it's VILE. :thumbsdown:

[Eric J in MN]

6. There is nothing about race in today's controversial quote. NT

NT

[kennetha]

7. You are completely disingenuous.

I wouldn't vote for Obama now if he were the last democrat on earth because his supporters are such disgusting, disingenuous creeps. This sort of twisted logic is really starting to infuriate me. I think I'll give another couple hundred dollars to Hillary just so she knows that there is no way she should give in to these creepy, anti-democratic, full of themselves, lying sob's.

[Eric J in MN]

8. A reporter may not want to write...

Bill Clinton was in North Carolina today and gave the same stump speech he's given a million times before.

It would be true, but not very new.

If instead a reporter writes, as Carrie Dann did:

"In the wake of controversy over comments made by Barack Obama's former minister, Clinton's comments could be seen as an effort to draw attention to the issue of patriotism in a state with a high population of veterans."

Then she's saying something new, but not very true.

"could be seen" = a hint that a reporter is going to stretch the truth

Her statement is retroactively true in that a lot of people now believe that Bill Clinton attacked Barack Obama's patriotism based on her report.

However, a reasonable person who is familiar with Bill Clinton's stump speech wouldn't have taken his remarks that way without her dubious presentation.