Butt Out, Bill: 'Let Me Handle It,' Hillary says

April 11, 2008— -- Former President Bill Clinton today told reporters in Terre Haute, Ind., that his wife called him and told him to stop defending her false story about landing in Bosnia in 1996 amid sniper fire.

"Hillary called me and said, 'You don't remember this. You weren't there, let me handle it.' I said, 'Yes ma'am,'" the former president said. "She said, 'Look, just let me handle this cause you don't remember it, either.'''

Campaigning in Indiana Thursday, the former president brought up his wife's discredited account of her trip to Bosnia as a way of defending her against the media. But by doing so, he revived a controversy that had mostly died down. Moreover, his explanation contained as many inaccuracies as did her original tale.

In Boonville, the former president told voters that "Hillary, one time, late at night, when she was exhausted, she misstated and immediately apologized for what happened to her in Bosnia in 1995."

That explanation is riddled with a sniper's fire worth of falsehoods. Hillary Clinton told the inaccurate story at least three times about a sniper-threatened landing in Tusla in 1996, and the one instance to which her husband was referring was midmorning. In point of fact, it took her days to acknowledge her misstatement, for which she never apologized.

"This has become another distraction in the campaign," said David Gergen, a former adviser to Bill Clinton and editor at large for U.S. News & World Report. "Her campaign keeps going sideways instead of forward."

Asked if he regretted that his statements might be distracting people from his wife's campaign, the former president told reporters, "I regret that people like you care more about that than whether she served the troops."

Hillary Clinton's campaign spokesman Phil Singer released this statement today: "Sen. Clinton appreciates her husband standing up for her, but this was her mistake and she takes responsibility for it."

The former president is, for Hillary Clinton, both an asset and liability, given his popularity among Democrats but also his sometimes disruptive behavior.

From New Hampshire to South Carolina and elsewhere, the former president has campaigned exhaustively for his wife -- sometimes holding more events in one day than she and Barack Obama combined. But he also has drawn headlines for outbursts and his post-White House business dealings.

This week, Hillary Clinton was grilled not only about her husband's support for the free trade deal with Colombia -- one she opposes as she campaigns in labor-friendly Pennsylvania -- but also about a possible conflict of interest. In 2005, he was paid $800,000 by Gold Service Intl., a pro-trade Colombian company, to appear at a conference in Bogota, among other stops, where he talked up the trade deal.

On Wednesday, in Aliquippa, Pa., Hillary Clinton said she is firmly opposed to the free trade agreement with Colombia despite her husband's connections.

"I have a long record of being on a different attitude toward trade than my husband does," she said, "You know, I don't think any married couple I know agrees on everything, and we disagree on this."

Yet Clinton was careful not to undermine her husband's opinion, pointing out that the Colombian free trade deal was a "great debate" with two strong sides. She pointed out that "very credible people who care deeply about this country and who have a commitment to improving the economy for working people have a different view."

But the millions of dollars the president has collected from foreign entities for his charity work, his foundation, his presidential library and his wallet sometimes present possible conflicts of interest. The president's financial relationships with business and government leaders in the United Arab Emirates caused a controversy when some of those leaders called him for advice while his wife was trying to block Dubai Ports World from obtaining a contract for port security in the United States.

In 2005, the former president helped Frank Giustra, a Canadian mining millionaire, secure a contract in Kazakhstan. As first reported by The New York Times, though, his wife and human rights groups were criticizing Kazakh President Nursultan A. Nazarbayev while the former president expressed admiration for him and publicly supported his bid to head an international organization. Giustra soon was able to secure agreements giving his company access to uranium projects in that country, after which he donated $31.3 million -- and pledged $100 million more -- to the William J. Clinton Foundation.

"That was a very disturbing," says Fred Wertheimer, president of the nonprofit, nonpartisan good government group Democracy 21, "and I think it has to be looked at in terms of President Clinton and his sensibilities and the way in which he's treating his former presidency. It does cause me concern."

More recently, on the campaign trail, Hillary Clinton bashes the Saudis, saying voters "will not see me holding hands with the Saudis." Her husband, however, has accepted large enough donations to his presidential library from the Saudi royal family that they are listed as trustees -- though their contributions remain undisclosed.

"President Clinton should disclose the donors to his presidential library," Wertheimer says. "It could be a way of currying favor with a public official or candidate; he ought to disclose the currently unknown donors to his presidential library."

Though it is unclear what kind of role Bill Clinton would play in a Hillary Clinton administration, she has said before that he would be "one of those people who will be sent around the world as a roving ambassador" -- a role that, even in its earliest stages, is raising a complicated set of problems for the complex couple. He has clearly been roving the world already -- gathering money for charities, his library and himself.