Bill Clinton Hints That Obama Got Special Treatment When He First Ran For the White House

Bill Clinton has completed a taped interview with Fareed Zakaria that is scheduled to be shown later today on CNN.

He thinks the Republicans and reporters who want to see a closer race are behind the focus on Hillary Clinton's emails:

“I have never seen so much expended on so little,” Mr. Clinton said in a taped interview with Fareed Zakaria that is scheduled to be shown Sunday on CNN. The network released excerpts on Saturday afternoon....

The other party doesn’t want to run against her. And if they do, they’d like her as mangled up as possible,” Mr. Clinton said. “And they know that if they leak things and say things, that that is catnip to the people who get bored talking about what’s your position on student loan relief or dealing with the shortage of mental health care, or what to do with the epidemic of prescription drugs and heroin out in America.”... 

Mr. Clinton also faulted the political press corps, which he said was determined to see a competitive contest.

During the interview according to NYT, Clinton also conjured up a decades-old history of political nefariousness. “Ever since Watergate, something like this happens,” . Clinton said, referring to the email scandal which is in high focus by the media.. “And so I’d rather it happen now than later.”

NYT also reports about the CNN interview:

“This is just something that has been a regular feature of all of our presidential campaigns, except in 2008 for unique reasons,” Mr. Clinton said, without elaborating on why he believed that President Obama had not faced similar Republican-led efforts to derail his candidacy.

 -RW