Clinton Defends Wife's Abortion Remarks By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Former President Clinton, defending his senator-wife's statements on abortion, said Wednesday that Democrats are held to a double standard.
The comment came during remarks to Campus Progress, a left-leaning student group. He said young people in his party should speak directly to conservative voters.
He contended that Republicans have defined the abortion debate in a way that boxes in Democrats.
"So for example, if you're a Democrat and you have sort of normal impulses, you're a sellout, like when Hillary said abortion is a tragedy for virtually everybody who undergoes it, we ought to do all we can to reduce abortion," Clinton said.
"All of a sudden," he continued, the media began asking, "'Is she selling out? Is she abandoning her principles?' But if John McCain, who's pro-life, works with Hillary on global warming, he's a man of principle moving to the middle."
"It's nuts," the former president said.
A speech by Sen. Clinton in January in Albany, N.Y., led to a flurry of speculation that she was shifting slightly to the right. In that speech, she called abortion a "sad, even tragic choice" and said her husband's administration had done a great deal to reduce the number of abortions in the United States.
Conservatives and abortion-rights foes portrayed the speech as a sign that she was edging toward the middle with an eye toward the 2008 presidential campaign. Her supporters, however, said she was simply repeating positions she had stated since her 2000 campaign for the Senate.
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On the Net:
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton: clinton.senate.gov |
