Prometheus 6

He was caught, at the end of the interview when he apparently thought he was off the microphone, saying, “I don’t think I should take any” — he then used an expletive — “from anybody on that, do you?”...

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton was also asked about her husband’s remarks, with television cameras rolling on Tuesday. She demurred, saying she preferred to pay attention to voters’ issues on the day of the Pennsylvania primary.

More Finger Wagging From a Miffed Bill Clinton
By KATE PHILLIPS

WASHINGTON — Wagging his finger once again, former President Bill Clinton chided a reporter on Tuesday for what he deemed a misinterpretation of his remarks during a radio interview in which he said the Obama campaign “played the race card on me.”

Mr. Clinton confronted the issue of race again on Monday when he was asked by an interviewer for WHYY radio in Philadelphia about his remarks earlier this year on the results of the South Carolina Democratic primary. At the time, he likened the victory of Senator Barack Obama to that of the Rev. Jesse Jackson in 1998; Mr. Clinton’s comparison was denounced widely by black officials who believed he was marginalizing Mr. Obama’s victory with a racially tinged allusion to Mr. Jackson’s failed presidential bids.

His comments became a turning point for many black officials and African-American voters, who cited them over and over in the weeks afterward as reasons they had coalesced behind Mr. Obama.

Susan Phillips, the journalist for WHYY in Philadelphia who interviewed Mr. Clinton on Monday, asked him whether he would still make that comparison or whether it had been a mistake, prompting Mr. Clinton to reply: “No, I think that they played the race card on me. We now know, from memos from the campaign and everything, that they planned to do it along.”

As he had in the past, Mr. Clinton defended his views in the radio interview, saying that Mr. Jackson’s victory was a “seminal” one and that even Mr. Jackson was not offended by the remarks. Mr. Clinton spent the remainder of the interview outlining his record of appointing black officials to his cabinet, and citing his efforts around the world through his foundation.

“You’ve got to really go some to play the race card with me,” Mr. Clinton said. “My office is in Harlem, and Harlem voted for Hillary, by the way.”