Joe was right. And Obama was right. Obama sucker-punched the Clintons into making Bill the attack dog and making Bill the issue. And they did. Joe has been saying for a while that he felt something was up, that the Obama people had some polls or something suggesting that tying Hillary to Bill would hurt her campaign. So they did, and it may have. More from ABC:
The Clinton campaign appears to be trying to keep the former president tightly on message while he campaigns across the country for his wife, in the lead up to the crucial Feb. 5 multistate contests....
ABC NEWS asked Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., if she personally asked her husband to "tone it down" a little in recent days, and she didn't deny it.
"Well, I'm very proud of his promoting my candidacy, and I'm very happy that he is able to travel as widely as he has been, along with my daughter," Clinton told reporters while campaigning in Little Rock, Ark.
"But this is my campaign, it is about my candidacy," she said....
After the jump, Hillary apologizes for Bill's attacks on the media and says he may have cost her South Carolina...
In an interview with Cynthia McFadden for ABC NEWS' "Nightline," tonight, Clinton apologized for her husband's recent controversial remarks.
"I think whatever he said, which was certainly never intended to cause any kind of offense to anyone. ... If it did give offenses, then I take responsibility, and I'm sorry about that."....
Asked whether her husband contributed to her defeat in South Carolina, Hillary Clinton told the New York Daily News' editorial board, "It may have," she said.
This is my campaign? That's never good. Does McCain need to remind us that his wife (I'm sorry, his SECOND wife, not his first wife whom he allegedly cheated on and left after she had a horrible accident) isn't the one running for president?
This is about as big a backing away from her husband as Hillary could do. Apologizing for his comments and suggesting that he may have cost her South Carolina? Clearly the Clinton campaign feels that the perception of Bill as the bad guy is hurting them. I just talked to Joe about this and he made a good point. People (that would include me) have worried whether Obama doesn't know how to fight back, whether he's naive about political hardball. His handling of "the Bill thing" suggests otherwise.
