In two television interviews this week, former president Bill Clinton talked up Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential prospects and left open the possibility that she would run in 2008.
While Mr. Clinton made it clear that his wife had not decided what do about 2008, he said she would make a "magnificent" president and even mused aloud about how she might lay the groundwork for a national run.
In the process, Mr. Clinton seemed to stray from the strict party line put forth by Mrs. Clinton and her tight-lipped cadre of advisers: that she is totally focused on getting re-elected to the Senate in 2006 -- and not even thinking about 2008.
Mr. Clinton, for example, said Mrs. Clinton should not rule out the possibility of running for president in 2008, even if that means she cannot pledge to serve out a full second term.
In running for re-election, Mrs. Clinton will almost certainly be buffeted by Republican demands that she pledge to serve out her term if she wins.
In discussing the matter, Mr. Clinton suggested that his wife follow the strategy George W. Bush employed when he ran for a second term as governor of Texas in 1998: He refused to rule out the possibility of cutting short his second term in office to become president.
"If she wants to entertain that, she ought to do pretty much what President Bush did," Mr. Clinton said during CNN's Larry King Live on Wednesday.
"He didn't rule it out, and he shouldn't have ruled it out," Mr. Clinton continued. Mr. Clinton did emphasize a point that Mrs. Clinton and her advisers make when they are asked about her presidential prospects: that the most important task before her is convincing the voters of New York that she deserves a second term.
"I know that she is focused on finishing this term and getting re-elected, and that's exactly what she should focus on," he said on NBC Nightly News on Wednesday. "If she loses that focus, she might not get to the next election."
But Mr. Clinton said he did not think a decision on a presidential run had been made. "I am quite confident she has not decided to do that, or, if she has, she hasn't told me."
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS