According to the CNN Political ticker, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson has responded to former President Clinton's assertion that "Five times to my face he said he would never do that" referring to Richardson's endorsement of Barack Obama.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com...
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson on Wednesday sharply disputed Bill Clinton's reported claim that Richardson promised to endorse Hillary Clinton's bid for the White House.
"I never did," Richardson said. "I never saw [President Clinton] five times. I saw him when he watched the Super Bowl with me. We made it very clear to him that he shouldn't expect an endorsement after that meeting."
Having fully immersed myself in political coverage way past the level of healthy curiosity, I remember wondering when they had seen each other five times since Richardson dropped out. Given the intense coverage of their Super Bowl Sunday sitdown, it seems implausible that they have secretly met four more times under the media radar.
In the interview Wednesday, Richardson acknowledged he was "very close to endorsing" Clinton, but decided not to after the campaign got "nasty."
"I held back. I waited. I felt the campaign got nasty. I heard Senator Obama; he would talk to me continuously," Richardson said.
So, on one side, we have BC asserting that BR told him face-to-face more than once that BR would not endorse BO. BR is now directly refuting that charge. Who do we believe? Well, I see an inconsistency coming from the Clinton camp.
An excerpt from James Carville's piece in the Washington Post:
"I believed that Richardson's appointments in Bill Clinton's administration and his longtime personal relationship with both Clintons, combined with his numerous assurances to the Clintons and their supporters that he would never endorse any of Sen. Hillary Clinton's opponents, merited a strong response."
Given Carville's strong posturing on this issue, I find it hard to believe that if Richardson told the former president to his face five times that he would not endorse Obama, he would not have been shouting this from the rooftops in his numerous appearances and remarks on this. It's a pretty strong talking point in defense of the Judas comment and Carville is, if nothing else, a master of talking points.
"Bill Richardson's response was that the Clinton people felt they were entitled to the presidency. In my mind, that is a debatable hypothesis. But, even more than that, I know that a former president of the United States who appointed someone to two Senate-confirmed positions is entitled to have his phone calls returned."
Governor Richardson wrote a response to the Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
As for Mr. Carville's assertions that I did not return President Clinton's calls: I was on vacation in Antigua with my wife for a week and did not receive notice of any calls from the president. I, of course, called Sen. Clinton prior to my endorsement of Sen. Obama. It was a difficult and heated discussion, the details of which I will not share here.
Here's Richardson talking about this whole mess with CNN's John King:
http://www.cnn.com/...
So, in a nutshell, someone is not telling the truth. I will leave it to the reader to decide if it is Clinton/Carville or Richardson. But, to paraphrase, lie to me once, shame on you, lie to me a lot, well, you get the point.
-----------
UPDATED: According to Mark Halperin of Time Magazine's The Page, a Clinton associate was quoted as saying:
http://thepage.time.com/...
"Bill Richardson is clearly embarrassed that he broke his promise to them. He should come out and tell the truth and admit that he told both Clintons that Obama wasn’t ready and can’t win."
I don't know, embarrassment is not the vibe Richardson is giving off right now.