John Edwards and Barack Obama have used their spouses' liberal cred to dodge questions on gay marriage, while for Hillary Clinton, the challenge during this primary has often been to appear more progressive than her husband. But now Bill Clinton, too, has stepped into the spouse wars, trying to strengthen Hillary's lefty appeal to grassroots Democrats. As his wife finds herself locked in a caucus dead heat with antiwar-from-the-start Obama, Bill Clinton told a crowd in Iowa yesterday, "Even though I approved of Afghanistan and opposed Iraq from the beginning, I still resent that I was not asked or given the opportunity to support those soldiers." The comment was made in the context of Clinton opposing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. It's a line I've heard him use in two other speeches, first at Brown University in 2005, and then at the Center for American Progress' Common Good conference last year. Each time it was in reference to how much money we've spent fighting a losing war in Iraq, but never before has Clinton called himself antiwar "from the beginning." The Times states that a "rival Democratic campaign" circulated the remarks and implied Clinton was being less than truthful. In fact, the former president said in 2003 that he wouldn't have gone to war without giving Hans Blix and the United Nations a chance to complete their weapons inspections. But Clinton has also frequently voiced support for the Senate resolution that authorized Bush to go to war, and which Hillary has come under fire for refusing to apologize for supporting. --Dana Goldstein
