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First Read is an analysis of the day's political news, from the NBC News political unit. First Read is updated throughout the day, so check back often.

Chuck Todd, NBC Political Director

Mark Murray, NBC Deputy Political Director

Domenico Montanaro, NBC News Political Reporter



Bill: Health-care failure was my fault

Posted: Thursday, November 08, 2007 2:02 PM by Mark Murray

From NBC/NJ's Carrie Dann
GLENWOOD, IA -- During a stop here today, former President Bill Clinton made the following comments: 

-- The failure of his Administration's health-care plan was more his fault than Hillary's.

-- There are countries, like Argentina, that have had female presidents. He added that he thinks his wife is going to win the general election by a large margin. Her gender, he said. will be a big asset, in part because a woman can balance things better.

-- Referring to the Swift Boat ads in 2004, he said that Republicans like to make Democrats look like cartoons.

*** Update *** Here's what Bill Clinton said exactly on health care: "She has taken the rap for some of the problems we had with health care the last time that were far more my fault than hers. Let's just face it. We couldn't raise money. This time, when you let the tax cuts for upper-income people expire, it'll create a pool of money that wasn't there last time. We told her she had to get to universal coverage and there would be no new money. She had to figure out how to do it. She also was very vulnerable to a Senate filibuster last time. Because they were on the 'just say no to Bill Clinton.'" 
  

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Just when the girl card stuff was starting to die down. Anyone else think he's trying to sink her swiftboat himself?
So, you guys heard about the Waitress who lied? Maybe you're getting you're reports from Karl Rove? Someone said they saw him in Pella, wearing a Cyclones Sweatsuit and carrying a "The 22nd Amendment Doesn't Count" sign. I believe that's Huevos Rancheros on your faces. There are also some bloggers who owe Hillary an apology, though I'm sure she's not gonna hold her breath.
Wow... talk about being whipped... whappaah!
MRS.BILL CLINTON BIGGEST OBSTACLE IS MR.BILL CLINTON.
HE IS HER OWN WORST ENEMY. I FOR ONE BELIEVE THAT HE REALLY DOES NOT WANT HER TO BE PRESIDENT. STEALS TOO MUCH OF HIS THUNDER
MWINCK
SLIDELL, LA
I imagine had the health care fiasco instead been a success, Hillary Clinton would be taking (and being given by Bill) all the credit.  Even with her failure, she talks about her "experience" in health care reform.  Once again, she is trying to have it both ways.
Interesting comment, Asad.  Elizabeth Edwards and Michelle Obama frequently speak on behalf of their husbands and in defense of their husbands policies and/or statements.  Are you willing to make the same crude comment about them?
I’m going to let you in on a little secret . . . shhh, don’t tell anybody.  If you select Clinton on your ballot, you will get Hillary, not Bill.  That doesn’t mean that you won’t have to carry Bill’s baggage though.

Maybe if the Clinton's released their records, we could verify Hillary's role in anything during Bill's presidency.  Frankly, if we find out that it was Bill's fault, then what experience is Hillary claiming.  If it is Hillary's fault, then it just adds to the argument of her being devisive and polarizing.

It's nice to see Bill being so objective about this whole election (ummm, yeah).  He obviously has a powerful stake in her winning.  Nobody (besides the more deluded) actually believes Bill will be a "roving ambassador" in another Clinton administration, not even those really close to the Clintons.  His role will be more like Cheney's role to Bush--except on the days they fight.
Bill Clinton has got to be the biggest idiot in world.  Either that, or he's switched over to help Obama.
Did those Bush tax cuts not exist before 2001? Still going to have to figure out a way to pay for her proposals.
Interesting how The other candidates wifes can say whatever they want - Hello Mrs. Edwards - how many times has she said bad things (Like the only reason no one pays attention to her husband is because he is a white male - not a woman or black). Bill Clinton has a right to defend and be bias to his wife.

It's sad.  Bill Clinton is becoming a joke.
Bill's statement is laughable at best. Boy, has he been on damage control since the last debate or what?  If his statement is true, show the records. Clinton INC is crumbling. Much to my delight.
The Clintons are desperate. Hillary is pulling the Big Gun out now,Bill and what a crock. She definitely cannot stand up against the GOP.

Senator Obama for the Democratic nominee.
GO BRACK!!!

Only Honesty, no baggage with Obama.
None of this matters. The vision is exquisitely clear. We will have a female president. Hillary will be our next president.
Uh Bill:
Since George Bush actually created the tax cuts for the rich after you left, the money was there.  

The lobbyists who now finance your wife's campaign blocked it.  The secretive nature in which she did business blocked it.  Her resistance to compromise blocked it.

Nothing has changed.
It will be a wonderful day for America when William Jefferson Clinton is back in the WHITE HOUSE!!  America will be so proud, the world will be proud.  We will gain support and respect from  world leaders.
Hillary and Bill will lead America to greatness once more.  The dynamic duo will lead and take us out of the fear and crime of our present disaster in chief.
Hail to the Clinton's to America as it should be!
America vote for the best of the best.

It will be a wonderful day for America when William Jefferson Clinton is back in the WHITE HOUSE!!  America will be so proud, the world will be proud.  We will gain support and respect from  world leaders.
Hillary and Bill will lead America to greatness once more.  The dynamic duo will lead and take us out of the fear and crime of our present disaster in chief.
Hail to the Clinton's to America as it should be!
America vote for the best of the best.

Asad,

If you take time to study some of the more effective leaders--in business and in government--you will find a number of common aspects to their managerial approach:

1. Willingness to share credit with others when things go well;
2. Acceptance of responsibility when things don't go well;
3. Recruitment and retention of superior people to fill subordinate positions;
4. Full, frank, and open dialogue in the decision making process so that a wide range of ideas, scenarios, and options are explored.

Such approaches have nothing to do with being "whipped." Although I am a Republican, I find your thinly veiled sexism to be irrelevant to the discussion at hand and little more than a distraction.
Is this a damage control? This guy is a joke. He is trying to have it both ways again.

We all knew Hillary Clinton blew it as a chairman of the task force. Now Bill is telling us otherwise.

Sorry, Slicky Bill, i ain't buying it
If it was Bill who failed at health care well then.... What is it that Hillary accomplished?! She won't release records disclosing what she has done and her husband is taking credit for her failures. WHAT DID SHE DO? WHY SHOULD WE VOTE FOR HER?
I meant that he's whipped for taking the blame for Hillary's mistakes. Many of us guys do it from time to time or risk sleeping on the dredded couch...
A woman can ''balance things better''. Then perhaps Bill would like to explain why Bhutto was tossed out of Pakistan the first time around. The chronic and endemic political scandals involving the administration of Indias Indira Gandhi. The inability of Israels Golda Meir to restrain MOSSAD,coupled with more political corruption there. Corizone Aquinos utterly corrupt government in the Phillipines.
               That Bill places a gender quality on his pronouncement is already making him and Hillary look ridiculous. Indeed,in the awaited poll by WSJ/NBC,Guiliani is now at dead heat with Hillary, a stumbled runner who cannot seem to regain her feet. Hillarys pal Joe Klein is at this moment,trying to rally the troops over at TIME Magazine while the lead continues to leak. In another worrying poll by RASMUSSEN,while a substantial number of Americans wish to see Democrats with their hands on the wheel[though even this is diminishing due to their lousy trackrecord in Congress coming up on its first year],only 46%[of Democrats,not all parties], said that they would back a ''Hillary Clinton'' who remains Americas most polarizing presidential candidate today. This number will probably go south,with Edwards,Obama,Guliani,and the dark horse Paul,gleaning the benefits leading up to next summer.
No! he didn't say that. We know the ultimate fault rest with the President but the person that spear head the program is at fault too.

Actually, Hillary is not a woman but a neo con that is pretending to be a woman. If Hillary is so competent why did she blew it in the '90s.

She closed the doors to all the chairman of various committee and now Bill want us to believe otherwise.
By the way, if Barack Obama had dropped the ball on a legislation and Michelle Obama took the blame, I would find that suspect as well.

And I want to point something out... I am a liberal (as "looney" as we come), and for the last several years, whenever one of us objected to Bush's policies we were called traitors... now, whenever someone objects to Clinton, we are called sexists. Are we trading one ridiculous "freedom fries" regime for another?

Just FYI, my favorite Senator is Barbara Boxer, and if she were running for President I would be supporting her.
NSMNBC - Do you require all of the other spouses to be objective as well?  
mr. clinton proclaims / Her gender, he said. will be a big asset, in part because a woman can balance things better.

they are beginning to pander to the only supporters hillary has ever really had, the feminazi's. everyone else has known for years she is just another corporate owned eletist.

can anyone imagine what an up-roar would occur if one of the male candidates even insinuated that they were somehow able to do anything better because they were male and not female, what a bunch of sexist bull, the hillary is on the way down if she was ever really up
FYI Bee, the nickname was "Slick Willy" not Slicky Bill.  
Bill,
What a Joke! Does America really want a serial sexual predator back in the White House?
yea, and sorry bee but the Clintons will be back in the White House. Obama is going to have to wait.
Mrs Clinton has bigger balls than all the men combined.
It is what it is. Yes, Hillary was the pointman for healthcare during Bills administration. Today she takes money from the healthcare industry, and consistantly votes for funding the occupation. Thats weak. My candidate will have to be stronger than that.
Down with Hypocrites!!
Of course all the negatives that were projected to come from NOT passing health care reform then have come true.  Increasing premiums, increasing out of pockets, increasing uninsured, increasing dependence on existing government programs, declining quality of care for those who can't afford the Cadillac plans, all of it true.
What?!?  The Democrats controlled Congress when Billary sold out on health care. MILLIONS of Americans have the scars for that fia$co.
re: "Uh Bill: Since George Bush actually created the tax cuts for the rich after you left, the money was there."

Uh, Ben... the healthcare debate was in 1995.  President Clinton left the surplus to Bush in 2001.  It was spent by 2003.  
Not on healthcare, but on tax cuts for the wealthy.

And now we have a war being "funded" by Bush on our kids' future -- as an "emergency" after almost five YEARS.  

Clinton:
peace and prosperity

Bush:
unending debt, unending wars, unending invasions, unending invasions of privacy  
I hate to say it, but it's looking more and more like Bill C. has Alzheimer's.
hillary and bill are the best suited for the job.i bet you could dig up  dirt on any of the ones running or find fault with any of them. none are perfect.everyone has their own opinion about who is the best,and my opinion is hillary.i hope and pray shes our next president.people including me just love to debate and argue
Hillary is running on her experience as first lady and being in charge of healthcare reform and claimed learning from mistake. Bill is saying she did nothing wrong and it's all his fault. Well, we don't have the "35 years of standing up against right wing attack machine" and "strength and experience to deliver change". Mr Clinton, sit down with wife and settle down on one story and both use one consistent story. You couple are becoming a laughing stock. Better keep doing what you have been doing as an ex president and live rest of the life with dignity and honor if you have any left.
Bee. He is trying to have it both ways again.

This why HRC is the same way.
You can`t have it both ways  HRC or Bill.
Truth be told I really think that Bill is helping
the other candidates.

Hillary is for Hillary and the special interests
groups.

OBAMA CAN AND WILL BRING THIS COUNTRY TOGETHER.
THIS IS WHAT WE NEED. NO MORE POLARIZING FIGURES WHO WILL DIVIDE AND KEEP DIVIDING THIS COUNTRY.

Her continually changing her mind to fit her audience, it is really getting ridiculous.
a vote for Hillary is a vote to nowhere and no changes.
Hillary Clinton, 15 years of dishonesty, scandals and divisiveness.

DO WE REALLY WANT THIS IN THE WHITE HOUSE CONTROLLING OUR COUNTRY.............I THINK NOT!!!

Hillary Clinton is too corrupt and scandal prone to clean up the Bush legacy.

Hillary Clinton will just make people forget about the Bush scandals by creating more new scandals of her own.

Hillary Clinton is too divisive to bring this country together. She would lead a Bush-Cheney-light  '51% solution' with her own 'dead-enders' approving everything she does and the rest of the country oposing her corruption.

Those 27% who still support Bush would be replaced by the 27% who support Clinton after a year of two.

Hillary Clinton, 15 years of dishonesty, scandal and divisiveness.


WHAT WE NEED IS CHANGE, AND OBAMA IS THE MAN TO DO IT!! HE HAS STOOD BEHIND ALL THAT HE HAS STATED, HE DOES NOT FLIP FLOP JUST TO GET THE SIDES OF THE AUDIENCE.
BARACK DEMOSTRATES HIS INTELLIGENCE & JUDGMENT BY STATING THE OBVIOUS.

NO MORE BUSHS/CLINTONS................End This War!!
NO MORE REPUBLICANS/CLINTONS..........End This War!!


Best Ticket: OBAMA/EDWARDS '08

OBAMA/EDWARDS '08

NO MORE BUSHS/CLINTONS................End This War!!
NO MORE REPUBLICANS/CLINTONS..........End This War!!

OBAMA/EDWARDS '08



Bill Clinton is not the best Citizen of American. But he is certainly one of the best president we have ever had. He gave intellectual prestige to the white house, a most needed thing in a time in which the american educational system is a matter of laugh as a result of the poorly performance in that respect of our current president. Hillary clinto understand America well and is smart enough to deal with the world without embarrasing the nation like Bush does
FYI Bee, the nickname was "Slick Willy" not Slicky Bill,

I hear you carrie but you get the point
Well now I'm just confused. Hillary's claiming her health care initiative during her husband's administration is part of her "extensive" experience. Now Bill claims the failings of that plan were his fault, but not really (they were the fault of not enough money, which Bush took away 6 years after the health care initiative died).

So what, exactly, is Hillary's "experience" in this regard, then?
Uh Jan in Nashua:

Peace and Prosperity?  That will be increasingly difficult when Hillary invades Iran.  

Do you follow her voting record?

It's sad to hear Bill rehearse the talking points from Hillary's campaign.  Hillary, by taking credit from the Clinton presidency, is damaging his legacy thereby rendering his presidency useless.  Bill should've kept his member in his pants...now he's subjected to Hillary's vengeance.
PEOPLE magazine should come out with the "Most Dysfunctional Couple"...billary would win in a landslide.
So what is Hillary's experience in the healthcare reform debacle.  She has claimed that because of it, she has learned from the mistakes and will be the best canidate to make it law this time around. Your experience whether a success or not informs you and helps you acheive greater things.  So either she has no experience or Bill is working for the Obama campaign because he is surely throwing around alot of trash.  Hillary had to backaway from Bill's swiftboating remarks.  Do I hear another nail in the inevitablity campaign?  Oh, yes I do!  Obama 08!
Don, New York: '...Asad,

If you take time to study some of the more effective leaders--in business and in government--you will find a number of common aspects to their managerial approach:

1. Willingness to share credit with others when things go well;
2. Acceptance of responsibility when things don't go well;
3. Recruitment and retention of superior people to fill subordinate positions;
4. Full, frank, and open dialogue in the decision making process so that a wide range of ideas, scenarios, and options are explored...'

Wow !!
Don, anything in there about doing you intern with a cigar ?
That must be something 'effective leaders'' do ?
How about lying under oath ?
Keeping their records under seal until after the election cycle ?
Whining when your wife is caught lying ?

Are those all techniques for 'effective leaders' ?
Carrie, Eastern Iowa: '...FYI Bee, the nickname was "Slick Willy" not Slicky Bill....'

Gee Carrie,  I always thought it was Slick Willie
The truth of the matter is, voters need to think about the fact that Hillary could not get her UHC passed even with a Democratic controlled Congress as well as 80% support for the plan by the American people in 1993 and her polarizing approach to it, caused the Democrats to lose Congress the following year. (Look it up) That's what voters need to think about. Hillary has experience alright. Experience in not getting things passed even in a Democratic controlled Congress because she is a polarizing divisive politician and we don't need that right now. We need UHC. Not HRC.
judy cagle bremen,ga ,

Are you sure about that ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SN5dqJHEnyE

....and that's from DEMOCRATS!
I thought his comments were charming. When has Bush ever sincerely taken responsibility for anything he has done?  I miss Bill!
Sierra, SF,

I was referring strictly to President Clinton's taking primary responsibility for the failure of his administration's health care initiative. I made no comment whatsoever about some of President Clinton's myriad personal shortcomings e.g., his behavior with Ms. Lewinsky. FWIW, I strongly believe in transparency. Hence, in my opinion, official records (excepting those that would compromise national security, sources and methods of Intelligence, etc.) should be made public. However, those issues are separate matters from that which I commented on.

Have a great weekend.


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