Bill Clinton Has Had It With the Coverage

Here's a pretty remarkable transcript of Bill Clinton's question-and-answer session with reporters after his event in Charleston earlier.

Q-CNN-Dick Harpootlian has called some of the tactics used in the
campaign reprehensible and reminiscent of Lee Atwater to try to appeal
on the basis of race and gender and for suppressing the vote in
Nevada.

A-I would ask Dick Harpootlian -- he wasn't in Nevada - I personally
took 6 Hispanic women who came to me to say we're so glad to see you
and we'll be there for you in November-at one of the hotels - I said
well, aren't you gonna caucus for her today? And she said no we can't.
And I said why? She said well u had to s up by wed and we didn't. and
I said why didn u? she said well because we're for Hillary and ... our
union told us we couldn't sign up for her, we could only caucus if we
weren't going to be for her. Now that's six people we were told that
hundreds of times.

Dolores Huerta-she doesn't need any lectures from Mr. Harpootlian
about civil rights and she said that she had never been through a
campaign like that.

Now it's okay. We're not hung up about it, we're just pointing it
out-to say that that's Lee Atwater - stating facts -- that's a little stretch-

Now you know long before South Carolina, when we were in Iowa months
ago, I never heard a word of public complaint when Mr. Obama said
Hillary was not truthful, had no character, was too poll driven when
he had more pollsters than she did -- when he put out a hit job on me, at the same time he called her the senator from Punjab. I never said a word and I don't care about it today. I'm not upset about it...

The only thing I've pointed out was that there is no significant
difference between her record on Iraq and his and that he said in 2004 that he there was no difference between his position and President
Bush. And he said that was somehow dishonest but he never answered how it's inaccurate-

This is crazy, this rhetoric is getting a little carried away here.

There are still too people alive who marched with Martin Luther King
risked their lives, John Lewis and Andrew Young they both said that
Hillary was right and the people that attacked her are wrong and that
she didn't play the race card but they did, so I don't have to defend
myself.

This is almost like once you accuse someone of racism and bigotry the
facts become irrelevant-the first thing I'd like to say -- you asked
me about this -- not one single solitary citizen asked about any of
this and they never do... They are feeding you this because they know
this is what you want to cover, this is what you live for, but this
hurts the people of South Carolina-what they care about is not going
to be in the newspapers tonight because you don't care about it – what you care about is this and the Obama people know it - and they just spin you up on this and you happily go along...

Q_Are you saying the Obama camp is bringing up these racial issues?

A-"You just want one more story -- shame on you! Shame on your, you just want one more story! Print the facts. Nobody ever prints any
facts."

Sincere thanks to the reporter who very kindly shared this write-up.