By Andrew Cline on 2.19.08 @ 12:07AM
Bill Clinton says Hillary will be history's second-best president.
CANTON, Ohio -- Former President Bill Clinton said yesterday
that if his wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton, is elected, she will be
"the second-best president in history."
"Today is Presidents Day," Clinton said at a campaign stop here
for his wife before Ohio's Democratic primary. "It's a day when we
look back on two centuries of American leadership and remember all
the presidents who were almost as great as me.
"We're talking some world-class talent here, folks. Abe Lincoln.
FDR. George Washington. Me. But you know, if Hillary gets elected,
she'll outshine all of 'em. Well, almost all. Ahem!"
Clinton said that although George Washington fathered the
country, Thomas Jefferson doubled its size, Abraham Lincoln
preserved it and Franklin Roosevelt transformed it, none of them
"achieved universal health care, restored our standing in the
world, saved the middle class from annihilation, and saved the
planet by ending global warming." He said those accomplishments
would be his wife's legacy.
Though he did not have the list of accomplishments he said his
wife would have, he said his own legacy was nonetheless greater
because "I laid the groundwork for any and all achievements she
will have, or that George W. Bush had, too, or any other future
president, for that matter. I mean, I ended the era of big
government, left the country with a budget surplus, kept us out of
war, made agreements like Kyoto possible, and kept us safe from
alien invasion. Oh, yeah, you don't know about that, do you? Well,
you will. One day, you will. When that day comes, they'll put my
friggin face on TOP of Mt. Rushmore, believe me."
Asked where Sen. Barack Obama would rate were he to be elected,
Clinton said, "Probably somewhere between Chester Arthur and
William Henry Harrison. Assuming he doesn't die from a drug
overdose at the inaugural ball. Then it'd be dead last, I'm afraid.
And what a shame that would be, too."
topics:
Health Care, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Global Warming