Bill Clinton says Obama ready to lead America
US: Former President Bill Clinton offered hearty and unqualified
praise for Barack Obama on Wednesday, saying the man who crushed his
wife’s White House dream was ready to lead America and restore U.S.
global leadership.
Clinton said Obama, who defeated Hillary Clinton in a bitter struggle
for the Democratic nomination, could lead the United States past the
divisions and strife of the last eight years of Republican leadership
under President George W. Bush.
“Everything I learned in my eight years as president and in the work
I’ve done since, in America and across the globe, has convinced me that
Barack Obama is the man for this job,” Clinton told a crowd of Democrats
waving American flags.
“Barack Obama is ready to lead America and restore American
leadership in the world,” he said, directly addressing the attacks on
Obama by Republican presidential rival John McCain. “Barack Obama is
ready to be president of the United States.”
Clinton, one of the party’s biggest stars, had been a loose cannon on
the campaign trail during his wife’s primary battle, frequently straying
off message to level angry complaints about Obama.
But he was a loyal team player on Wednesday, drawing a comparison
between the criticism he heard during his run for the presidency in 1992
and the Republican attacks on Obama ahead of the Nov. 4 election.
“We prevailed in a campaign in which the Republicans said I was too
young and too inexperienced to be commander in chief,” Clinton said,
repeating a criticism his wife also leveled at Obama during the
primaries.
“Sound familiar? It didn’t work in 1992, because we were on the right
side of history. And it won’t work in 2008, because Barack Obama is on
the right side of history,” he said.
Bill Clinton’s speech was the last act in a swirling drama that
overshadowed the first few days of the convention, as the lingering
resentments of some of Hillary Clinton’s supporters threatened to boil
over on the floor.
Hillary Clinton put an end to that threat with an impassioned call
for party unity on Tuesday and an emotional call for Obama’s nomination
by acclamation during a roll call on Wednesday.
She watched her husband’s speech from a box in the balcony of the
convention hall, waving American flags along with hundreds of other
delegates. Bill Clinton called her speech on Tuesday “magnificent.”
Denver, Thursday, Reuters |