Former United States President Bill Clinton on Monday said he was not a racist and he is 'not and never was mad' at Barack Obama, who defeated his wife in the racially-charged Democratic presidential nomination race.
"There are things that I wish I'd urged her (Hillary) to do. Things I wish I'd said. Things I wish I hadn't said," Clinton said regarding the controversies surrounding his comments about the African American Senator's win in the South Carolina Democratic primary against his spouse.
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"I've never made a racist comment and I never attacked him (Obama) personally," Clinton told ABC television, his first broadcast interview since his wife Hillary dropped out of the Democratic White House race and pledged to back Obama in the November 4 presidential poll.
After the 47-year-old Illinois Senator defeated Hillary in South Carolina, Clinton sought to downplay the significance of the victory by noting Jesse Jackson, a black leader, had won South Carolina in 1984 and 1988, which some in the African-American community found offensive.
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The controversy later brought an apology from Hillary.
But Clinton says that he has no hard feelings towards Obama. "I'm not and never was mad at Senator Obama," Clinton asserted as the Democrats head to Denver this month for the party convention to formally nominate their candidate.
"You know he hit her hard a couple of times and they hit us a few times a week before she ever responded in kind. The only thing I ever got mad about was people in your line of work pretending that she somehow started the negative stuff. It's a contact sport," Clinton said, criticising the media coverage during the closely-fought primaries.
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The Obama campaign's only response to Clinton's comments was to say: "We had a hard-fought primary. We head to the fall, a united Democratic Party, and look forward to the general election."
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