Clinton: 'I never made a racist comment'

Original Link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/08/04/politics/p060307D33.DTL

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Former President Clinton acknowledges there are some things "I wish I hadn't said" during the Democratic presidential nomination fight, but denies he made racist statements about Barack Obama.

Clinton, who had traveled to Rwanda for his private foundation's work to fight AIDS, charged that news organizations applied "a different standard" to his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. But when asked about it an interview broadcast Monday on ABC's "Good Morning America," the former president said that spending time on such recriminations "interferes with the issue, which is who should be elected in November."

"I bragged on Sen. Obama hundreds of times," he said. "Now, I will be glad, as soon as this election is over in January, to have this conversation with you and everybody else. I have very strong feelings about it."

Clinton cut a controversial profile throughout the Democratic delegate-selection process, championing his wife's cause and vehemently defending her on the campaign trail. But he also at times seemed an angry surrogate and he was harshly criticized for apparently disparaging Obama's early-season victory over his wife in the South Carolina primary. Clinton noted at the time that Jesse Jackson had won there 20 years earlier.

Asked in the interview whether he blames himself for his wife's loss, Clinton replied, "I've heard it from the press and I will not comment on it. ... There are things I wished I said. Things I wished I hadn't said, but I am not a racist. I never made a racist comment and I didn't attack him personally."

Nevertheless, Clinton did say he thought news organizations covered his wife more harshly than Obama. "A different standard was applied to the finest candidate I ever supported," he said. Clinton declined to comment on whether he thought Obama should put his wife on the ticket and he said he admires how she handled the loss. "She went right back to work," he said.

For example, he charged that news organizations were more likely to accuse Hillary than Obama of going negative.

"He hit her hard a couple times. And they hit us a few weeks before she ever responded in kind," he said. "The only thing I ever got mad about, people in your line of work pretending that she had started negative stuff. It's contact sport."

Sen. Clinton conceded to Obama in early June after the primary season concluded and he'd locked up sufficient Democratic National Convention delegates to become the party's standard-bearer against presumed Republican nominee Sen. John McCain this fall.

"I never was mad at Sen. Obama," the former president said. "I think everybody's got a right to run for president who qualifies under the Constitution. And I'd be the last person to begrudge anybody their ambition."

(This version CORRECTS SUBS 2nd graf to correct Clinton has traveled to Rwanda)