No One Left to Be Racist To
From the "first black President" who moved his base of operations to Harlem in 2001, to defending himself against charges of playing the race card. Former President Bill Clinton was visibly—and understandably—impatient when telling ABC News that he was not, in fact, a racist (video here) for, among other supposed offenses, saying that Sen. Obama had distorted his wife's position on Iraq and that his recapitulation of her views amounted to a "fairy tale." Indeed, Clinton is so bitter about the primary race row, reports the Daily News, that he refuses to say that Obama is ready to assume the presidency:
Bill Clinton regrets some things he said—and didn't say—on the campaign trail. But there's one thing he still can't utter: Barack Obama is ready to be President.
"You can argue that nobody is ready to be President," the former President told ABC News.
"You can argue that even if you've been vice president for eight years, that no one can be fully ready for the pressures of the office," Clinton said Monday during a visit to Rwanda. That's probably not what Team Obama wanted to hear from the former commander in chief, whose role in Obama's election push and at the Democratic National Convention remains in flux.
Team Obama has said Clinton will be an asset, but so far he and the Illinois senator have spoken only once, by phone, since the primaries ended—a fact that has peeved some Obama supporters.