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President Clinton Says Hillary is Right on Torture
September 30, 2007 7:29 AM
ABC News' Tahman Bradley Reports: Former President Bill Clinton tried to clear up what appeared to be a difference he has with his wife, Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Hillary Clinton, over whether the U.S. should condone a formal exception to torture if the nation faces a grave security risk.
Answering a hypothetical question during Wednesday night's Democratic presidential debate in New Hampshire, Senator Clinton said torture cannot be American policy, breaking with the former president who suggested in 2006 that there could be a law setup where the president of the United States could make an exception allowing the use of torture if a prisoner had information that could save American lives.
"Every one of us can imagine the following scenario: we get lucky, we get the number 3 guy in al-Qaeda. And we know there's a big bomb going off in American in three days. And we know this guy knows where it is. Don't we have the right and the responsibility to beat it out of him," said the former president in 2006.
But in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," Clinton backed away from his past comments on torture, announcing that his views are now in step with his wife.
"As a general point, I think she's right," he said.
"I think America's policy should be to oppose torture (and) to honor the Geneva Conventions for several reasons: One is, it's always counter productive, if you beat somebody up, they'll tell you what they want to hear. Two, it really hurts us in the rest of the world and it helps to create other terrorists. And thirdly, it's makes our own people valuable to torture."
Despite his seemingly new position on torture, Clinton still pointed to the situations that the fictional government agent Jack Bauer encounters weekly on the popular television series "24" to try to explain the difficult issue.
"It happens every season with Jack Bauer, but in the real world it doesn't happen very much. If you have a policy which legitimizes this, it's a slipper slop and you get in the kind of trouble we've been in here with Guantanamo and lots of other examples."
And further underscoring the difficulty of the issue Clinton told NBC's Tim Russert, "And I'm not even sure what I said is right now."
September 30, 2007 in Political Radar | Permalink | Share | User Comments (3)
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Oh dear heavens, Mr. Clinton knew who implemented the eye tests, when George Stephanopoulos asked him, but as usual Clinton wouldn't give any credit to this fine young man. Bill Clinton in my book has no credibility. He is another loser. Look at the track record of too many politicians most get away with criminal behavior and will again. Has Monica fallen off the radar or is she happily doing well. The later is my hope. BILL your smirky smile is a mirror inage of George and your cunning wife. Cunning lying Bill Clinton. God help us all.
Posted by: brooke drevers | Sep 30, 2007 8:00:23 AM
getting a %& and lying about has nothing to do with running the country. It was completely moronic for the Rep.'s to go after him like they did....yet they will let George Bush desecrate our constitution, our freedoms, our rights and shed the blood of innocent people, endanger, cripple our soldiers and lead them to die for something that has nothing to do with us, ruin our great nations name and cause people around the globe to hate us. Research before comparing Clinton to Bush and posting.
Posted by: Truth Speaker | Oct 1, 2007 3:22:29 AM
Hilary is all about manipulation and lying. Billary knows how to eskew the media and create a hype. Hillary will be another Gore for 2008.
Let get Obama to rise upto the front, I know right-winger do not want him to win the Dems primary, he will be hard to beat in the presidential election.
Posted by: Cohen | Oct 2, 2007 9:03:46 AM
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