Free Republic

Former President Clinton told a U.N. gathering Thursday that the global food crisis shows "we all blew it, including me," by treating food crops "like color TVs" instead of as a vital commodity for the world's poor. Addressing a high-level event marking Oct. 16's World Food Day, Clinton also saluted President Bush — "one thing he got right" — for pushing to change U.S. food aid policy. He scolded the bipartisan coalition in Congress that killed the idea of making some aid donations in cash rather than in food. Clinton criticized decades of policymaking by the World Bank, the International...

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has used promises of “change” to build a lead over one-time front-runner Hillary Clinton. But if the multiple references to change in Bill Clinton’s speech Wednesday were any indication, the Clinton camp is not about to allow Obama to monopolize that word. “She’s the best change-maker I’ve ever known – better than me,” the former president said during an appearance at Greater Johnstown High School. Little more than a week removed from much-needed primary wins in Ohio and Texas, and with the critical Pennsylvania primary slated for April 22, the Clinton campaign rolled into Johnstown...

Valentine's Day came early this year in Camp Clinton. Love is the reason Bill Clinton has gone wild on the trail, turning his red-faced rage at Barack Obama's presidential campaign and reporters on a serial basis, he explained Thursday. It was his answer to a female voter in South Carolina who urged him to "stop taking the bait from Obama." "When I was running, I didn't give a rip what anybody said about me," he said. "It's weird, you know, but if you love somebody and you think that they'd be good, it's harder." He blasted Obama recently as a...

What the nation needs is some good Jack Bauer agents, says Bill Clinton. Bill and Hillary Clinton apparently no longer think torture has a place in U.S. policy, but Bubba sure hopes a "24"-style cowboy steps up if someone ever nabs a terrorist who knows a bomb is about to blow. "If you're the Jack Bauer person, you'll do whatever you do and you should be prepared to take the consequences," Bill Clinton said yesterday. In Fox's hit show "24," actor Kiefer Sutherland's character Jack Bauer is regularly confronted with the ticking-time bomb scenario - and makes his own rules...

Halfway through an otherwise cordial debate, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden raised an issue generally left unspoken by the other Democratic candidates: Bill Clinton's complicated legacy as president and how it might affect Hillary Clinton's chances of winning her own election to the White House. ADVERTISEMENT "There's a lot of very good things that come with all the great things that President Clinton did, but there's also a lot of the old stuff that comes back," Biden said. "When I say old stuff, I'm referring to policy — policy." In a two-hour debate that touched on the Iraq war, Iran's nuclear...

One year after the first World Trade Center bombing, in 1994, Bill Clinton hushed up a federal report that warned of possible terrorist strikes, including how hijackers could use airliners to hit landmarks such as the Pentagon or White House. The Clinton administration never released "Terror 2000" to the public, purportedly because of concerns in the State Department it would cause panic. The Sept. 17, 2001 story by UPI Pentagon correspondent Pam Hess said the report, not only outlined the changing face of terrorism but also seemed to predict the scope and timing of the attacks carried out against the...

Half the people in the heart of the city would be killed or badly hurt. Many tens of thousands more would be exposed to radiation and later get cancer. Downtown would be completely "obliterated." These are just some of the chilling details in a soon-to-be-released report of the massive devastation terrorists would inflict if they detonated a Hiroshima-style bomb in a major American city like New York -

Bill Clinton plans to be a first gentleman for the 21st century: a post-modern, post-ego presidential spouse who does not earn an income of his own, but rather pays the bills from family savings and does what he can to help the missus down in the Oval Office. “I’ve tried to get in a position where, you know, I — I won’t — I’ll be able to do what she did when I was president — that is, I don’t want to spend any time making a living,” Mr. Clinton said in an interview on CNN late Tuesday, when asked...

Many adults in the United States long for the mandate of a previous head of state, according to a poll by Opinion Research Corporation released by CNN. 53 per cent of respondents miss former U.S. president Bill Clinton now that he has left the White House. In the survey, 96 per cent of African-American respondents say they miss Clinton, while 50 per cent of White Americans say they are glad he has left. Clinton—a Democrat and former governor of Arkansas—won the 1992 U.S. presidential election. His campaign was largely based on a condemnation of the economic recession of the early...

Bill Clinton says he's ready to serve should his wife become president. "People ask me all the time what I would do if Hillary was elected president, and I say - I tell the truth - I'll do whatever I'm asked to," the former president said during a speech at Claremont McKenna College in Southern California Sunday. Clinton noted, however, he wouldn't be able to serve as a Cabinet member in another Clinton administration because of rules barring presidents' immediate family members from getting such posts. "You should never have any doubt that the president can fire anybody that's in...

For Councilwoman Suja Lowenthal, meeting former president Bill Clinton was like running into a rock star. "I don't really idolize political figures, but people who are hard-core public servants just about stop me in my tracks," Lowenthal said. The councilwoman joined more than 200 people March 6 at a fundraiser sponsored by the law firm Keesal, Young & Logan in the Union Bank building. The proceeds benefited the Boys & Girls Clubs of Long Beach. Because Mayor Bob Foster and the entire council attended the afternoon event, the regularly scheduled 5 p.m. council meeting was pushed back to 6:30 p.m....

<p>Hillary Rodham Clinton left caucus-goers here yesterday believing that Bubba had given her a baptism by fire in how to deal with "evil and bad men."</p> <p>Clinton's quip, made during a morning rally with about 500 Iowans, drew 31 seconds of straight laughter and applause that left little doubt among attendees that she'd made a joke at hubby Bill Clinton's expense.</p>

Former President Bill Clinton urged Democrats on Wednesday to strive for an inclusive politics of "common good" and fight back against the divisive approach of Republican leaders. Less than three weeks before November 7 elections to decide control of Congress, Clinton said U.S. political debate had been degraded by "ideological, right-wing" Republicans who demonized opponents and concentrated power in the hands of a privileged few. Clinton said he longed for a politics that celebrated differences and disagreements without condemnation, and worked toward equal opportunity, shared responsibility and a sense of community. "Ideological, divisive, demonizing, distracting politics, they may be very...

Former President Bill Clinton, angrily defending his efforts to capture Osama bin Laden, accused the Bush administration in an interview to be broadcast Sunday of doing far less to stop Mr. bin Laden before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. In the interview for “Fox News Sunday,” Mr. Clinton defended the steps he took after the bombing of the destroyer Cole in 2000 and faulted “right-wingers” for their criticism of his efforts to capture Mr. bin Laden, the Qaeda leader. “But at least I tried. That’s the difference in me and some, including all of the right-wingers who are attacking me...

In a combative interview on "Fox News Sunday," former President Clinton defended his handling of the threat posed by Osama bin Laden, saying he tried to have bin Laden killed and was attacked for his efforts by the same people who now criticize him for not doing enough. "That's the difference in me and some, including all of the right-wingers who are attacking me now," Clinton said in the interview. "They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try, they did not try." Clinton accused host Chris Wallace of a "conservative hit job" and asked: "I want to...

<p>FORMER PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON ON NOT CAPTURING BIN LADEN: 'At least I tried. That's the difference between me and some, including all the right wingers. They ridicule me for trying. They had eight months to try, they did not try. I tried. So I tried and failed'...</p>

Former president Bill Clinton praised wife Hillary's prospects to be elected the next US leader, but said her possible White House run is a taboo topic at home. "I'm superstitious about it," Clinton told NBC television in an interview, saying that, for the moment, his wife's sole focus is her bid for reelection to the US Senate in November. "One of our family rules is don't look past the next election," he said. Clinton, interviewed in New York, insisted that his wife still has not reached a final decision about running for the White House, but said if she does,...

Former President Clinton said Thursday the U.S. should try talking to Iran about its nuclear weapons ambitions without imposing a lot of conditions. "If you think you might have trouble with somebody, and God forbid if you think it could lead to a military confrontation, then there needs to be the maximum amount of contact beforehand," Clinton said in an interview with NBC's "Today" show. The Bush administration has refused to hold direct talks with Iran until it agrees to suspend enrichment of uranium, which the U.S. fears will be used to build nuclear weapons. "The United States should not...

He Saw the Roots of America's Welfare Problem As a conservative analyst who spent much of the 1990s working against most of Bill Clinton's agenda -- including even some aspects of his welfare reform proposals -- it pains me to say this. Bill Clinton was right. He deserves more credit for the passage of welfare reform than most conservatives probably care to admit. No, Clinton didn't play a major role in shaping the policy details of the landmark 1996 act. But he understood something about policymaking that many conservative strategists and policy wonks could stand to re-learn: It isn't enough...

The woman famous for casting the sex organs of rock stars into plaster now has her eyes on politicians. Cynthia Plaster Caster has plastered Jimi Hendrix's johnson and members of Led Zeppelin but says her political side has become more aroused in recent years. Former President Bill Clinton is tops on her list but it's not a sex thing. Plaster casting is very personal to Cynthia and only for men she admires. For instance, she has no interest in casting George W. Bush's privates and says plastering Arnold Schwarzenegger's sex organs isn't her "cup of tea." If Clinton agrees to...