Former President Bill Clinton spent an afternoon with the students Saturday at the Clinton School where he discussed public service, politics and global affairs.
During the two-hour session, the president paused to take a call from his wife, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. He also showed his sports knowledge by predicting the New York Giants to win the Super Bowl by three points.
National Journal reporter Ron Fournier attended the session and filed a story on a comment the president made about the upcoming election. Here’s an exerpt:
Former President Clinton says that Republican GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney can call President Obama a lot of things, but “appeaser” is not one of them.
“He had one line that I think could cost him the election,” the former president told students at the Clinton School of Public Service in Little Rock, Ark., this weekend. That line, Clinton said, came after the Florida primary, when the former Massachusetts governor said, “President Obama has adopted a policy of appeasement and apology.”
Clinton said he hopes that Romney uses the line in a debate with Obama. The president, Clinton said, could remind voters that he ordered the mission to kill terrorist Osama bin Laden. Clinton imagined Obama responding like this: “I’m sorry. I’m not an appeasement candidate. I killed him.”‘