President Clinton is taking pot shots at successor George W. Bush because Clinton can’t bear to give up the White House and the world spotlight, Republicans charged yesterday.
“We’re going to have to pry [Clinton’s] hands off the door and search him to get the key back,” wryly quipped Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), whose wife, Elaine Chao, is Bush’s new choice for labor secretary.
Clinton for the past few weeks has been on a drawn-out “farewell” tour and keeps claiming Bush didn’t really win the White House and charging that Republicans stopped the Florida recount.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said: “I think President Clinton is obviously finding it very difficult to give up the presidency . . . I don’t think he should have said that [about the recount].”
The Palm Beach Post reported yesterday that its recount concluded that, contrary to the claims of Democrats, Bush would have gained a net six votes – rather than lost votes – if a recount in Miami-Dade County were completed.
The paper’s recount is the first of several by various media outlets.
A partial recount of Miami-Dade by teams of judges was cut off when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the hand recounts unconstitutional. Democrats say Gore stood to gain hundreds of votes.
Clinton used Florida last week for a series of zingers claiming Bush won only because Republicans stopped the vote tallying.
The soon-to-be-ex-president was at it again yesterday with an op-ed piece in The New York Times, in which he suggested Bush should outlaw racial profiling and push for election reform to avoid a repeat of the Florida fiasco.
Meanwhile, the barbed back-and-forth between Clinton and Bush has led to widespread speculation that there will be a big chill when the two men ride together to Bush’s inauguration Saturday.
Asked about Clinton’s high job-approval ratings in polls, Bush – in an interview aired yesterday on NBC – shot back: “Well, maybe so, but he’s not going to be the president on January the 20th. I am.”