Bill Clinton. Photo / Reuters
Not for the first time, Senator Hillary Clinton is reported to be furious with her husband for inadvertently reminding Americans how hard it can be to get straight truth from the Clintons.
While out campaigning for his wife in Iowa last week, Bill Clinton said he had opposed
the Iraq war "from the beginning", a statement that left his audience slack-jawed with incredulity and sent researchers scurrying to find evidence of his anti-war stance. They came back empty-handed.
Less than a month before Democrats vote in the Iowa primaries, the faux pas has brought the spotlight back to the most toxic issue in his wife's campaign - her vote to support the Iraq war. The easy lie about his war stance has also revived unhappy memories of the Clinton White House's reputation for slipperiness.
Barack Obama, then a little-known senator from Illinois, was one of the very few Americans who spoke out against the war from the start. Vice-President Al Gore was another.
Bill Clinton's attempt to airbrush history prompted a tirade from the influential New York Times columnist Frank Rich. "What if Mrs Clinton had led an insurrection against the war authorisation in the Senate?" he asked. "Might she have helped impede America's rush into one of the greatest fiascos in our history?"
Commentators suggest there is growing panic inside Hillary Clinton's campaign that she could be beaten by Obama when Iowa votes on January 3.
"I'm hearing that Hillary is ready to kill Bill," wrote influential political blogger Arianna Huffington.
Defeat in Iowa could be fatal to her bid for the Democratic nomination. Some believe it could puncture the aura of inevitability around her race.
The latest polls show Obama as the choice of 28 per cent of Democrats in Iowa, up from 22 per cent in October.
Clinton was at 25 per cent, down from 29 per cent. John Edwards stood at 23 per cent, which given the margin of error makes the race a three-way dead heat.
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