Political Snapshot

Bill Clinton: Obama Played Race Card On Me

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(Via Political Radar

ABC’s Rick Klein reports: Bill Clinton accused Barack Obama’s campaign of “playing the race card on me” and told a Philadelphia radio station that the Obama campaign took his Jesse Jackson comment and “twisted it for political purposes.”

And as the interview concluded, Clinton turned to an associate and said, “I don’t think I should take any s..t from anybody on that, do you?”

Clinton was talking to station WHYY about the fallout over his comparison of Obama’s South Carolina primary victory with the support of black Democrats to Jesse Jackson’s primary wins. Those comments were portrayed by critics as an attempt to highlight Obama’s race.

The former president fumed yesterday that it was Obama’s campaign that injected the race issue.

“I think that they played the race card on me. And we now know, from memos from the campaign and everything that they planned to do it all along,” Bill Clinton said in a telephone interview with WHYY’s Susan Phillips. “I was stating a fact, and it’s still a fact.”

The former president says the comment was “used out of context and twisted for political purposes by the Obama camapign.”

Clinton goes on to say that “you have to really go some to play the race card on me.” He lists a number of his accomplishments on behalf of African Americans, inexplicably putting the fact that he has “an office in Harlem” at the top of the list.

Clinton’s outburst began when Phillips asked the President how he feels about one Philadelphia official who says she switched her support after interpreting Clinton’s remarks in South Carolina as an attempt to marginalize Obama as “the black candidate.”

Clearly, Clinton seems frustrated by the question or the suggestion by anyone - either the reporter or the Philadelphia official whom she quoted - that he was somehow making a negative statement about Obama (or Jesse Jackson) based on their race.

His frustration comes through towards the end of the recording when, apparently unaware that he was still on the line, Clinton asks whoever is with him, “I don’t think I should take any s..t from anybody on that, do you?