The bitter rift that developed between Barack Obama when he was running for president last year and Bill and Hillary Clinton was one mean fight.
In the new book, “Renegade, The Making of a President,” by former Newsweek reporter Richard Wolffe, President Obama — then in the midst of a tight Democratic primary battle with Hillary — accused the former president of being a “bald-faced liar” and a “loose canon.”
Obama also said Bill Clinton was potentially “too much of a liability” when he was trying to decide whether to add Hillary to his White House team once he won the party’s nomination.
“We had to figure out how to deal with a former president who was just lying, engaging in bald-faced lies,” Obama explained to Wolffe.
When the then-candidate was asked if Bill Clinton had gotten into his head after staunchly campaigning for his wife, he admitted, “Yes, but I got into his.”
Bill Clinton and the Obama team got into it after the former president said the former Illinois senator had won the South Carolina primary because he was black — downplaying its significance by noting that Jesse Jackson had won the same state back in 1984 and 1988.
Clinton was labeled a “racist” by some Obama supporters in the African-American community, and the controversy later prompted Hillary Clinton to apologize.
When considering who to name as his running mate, Obama told his aides that if Hillary Clinton would help politically, she ought to be considered — even though in the end he went with gaffe-prone Delaware Sen. Joe Biden.
“But I’m concerned about Bill Clinton being a loose cannon,” Obama said, according to the book.
Excerpts of the bombshell book were posted today on the Web site Politico.com and The Huffington Post, who obtained early copies of the tell-all tome.
The book — No. 26 this morning on the list of Amazon bestsellers — is slated to hit bookstores today.
The excerpts also describe Obama as a candidate eager to have Hillary Clinton on his team as Secretary of State — but not willing to help with her mounting campaign debts.
“I’m not begging her to take this job,” Obama told his senior aides, according to the book.
“If she wants it, I could help. But I’m not willing to go out in these difficult economic times to do a flashy fundraiser in California.”
Obama finally made the decision to pick Clinton while the bitter primary battle still raged on last summer — and over the objections of his inner circle of advisers.
“I don’t hold grudges,” he told his aides, according to the book.
“I don’t worry about the past. I’m concerned about what happens now. If she can help me and Bill Clinton isn’t too much of a liability, we should seriously look at this.”