New York, May 14: Former US President Bill Clinton dubbed Barack Obama "incompetent" and pressed wife Hillary to quit her job as secretary of state to challenge the incumbent president in the primaries, a new book has claimed.
"The country needs you!" the former president had told Hillary Clinton, urging her to run this year, according to accounts of the conversation included in Edward Klein's new biography of Obama.
Obama, Bill Clinton had said, according to excerpts, "doesn't know how to be president" and is "incompetent".
The title of Klein's explosive, unauthorized biography of Obama, 'The Amateur', was taken directly from Bill Clinton's bombshell criticism of the president, the author said. "Barack Obama," Clinton said, "is an amateur." The withering criticism is incredible, given the fact that Bill Clinton is actively campaigning for Obama's re-election , the New York Post said.
According to the book, Bill Clinton unloaded on Obama and pressed Hillary to run against her boss during a gathering in the ex-president's home office in Chappaqua last August that included longtime friends.
"The economy's a mess, it's dead flat. America has lost its Triple-A rating . . . You know better than Obama does," Bill had said. Hillary resisted the entreaties, according to two of the guests interviewed. "Why risk everything now?" a sceptical Hillary said, emphasising that she wanted to leave a legacy as secretary of state.
The book's claims were shot down by spokesmen for the White House and the Clintons . Bill Clinton's spokesman said the excerpts were "completely false" . The White House spokesman accused Klein of making up facts to sell books.
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