Bill Clinton On Obama: “A Few Years Ago, This Guy Would Have Been Carrying Our Bags”

Former President Bill Clinton will give vocal support to the reelection of Barack Obama in a Democratic National Convention speech tonight, but does he really mean it?

The two men weren’t exactly the best of friends during the bitter 2008 Democrat primary between Obama and Bill Clinton’s wife Hillary Clinton, the former senator and now US Secretary of State. Apparently the two men are putting their disagreements aside for the sake of party unity and other reasons and now enjoy a “quasi friendship.”

Most television viewers will be watching the Cowboys-Giants NFL opening-night game instead of the political convention, but in case you’re interested, AP indicates that “Bill Clinton’s convention speech is expected to be an enthusiastic plug for Obama and the economic policies he has pursued as president — and stir nostalgia for the former president and first lady.”

According to a piece by Ryan Lizza in The New Yorker, however, Clinton allegedly made a blunt assessment of Obama in 2008 while trying unsuccessfully to get the late Sen. Ted Kennedy to endorse his wife’s presidential candidacy over Obama:

Tim Russert told me that, according to his sources, Bill Clinton, in an effort to secure an endorsement for Hillary from Ted Kennedy, said to Kennedy, “A few years ago, this guy would have been carrying our bags.”

The late Tim Russert was the long-time moderator of NBC’s Meet the Press.

Clinton was quoted in the book Game Change as saying roughly the same thing, but the reference was instead to “getting us coffee.”

In the past, Clinton allegedly referred to the current president as incompetent and “an amateur.” Edward Klein, who recently claimed that Hillary Clinton was offered and turned down the Veep slot in place of Joe Biden, called his bestselling book about the Obama administration The Amateur.

Bill Clinton apparently didn’t want his wife to wait until 2016 to make a presidential run either. Before Obama locked up the nomination, the New York Post reports that “Klein said Clinton had convened a meeting at his Chappaqua, Westchester, home to urge his wife to challenge Obama for the 2012 nomination.”

In June, Clinton has also got in trouble with his own party for remarking that GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney had a “sterling business career” and possessed the necessary threshold qualifications to serve as commander in chief.

Secretary Clinton, by the way, is nowhere near the Charlotte convention site. She is on a diplomatic mission to Asia.

Do you think Bill Clinton really wants Barack Obama to be reelected in November?