Bill Clinton: “Oh, sure. I said today at the prayer breakfast, I don't think anybody in public life, including me, is blameless. I…”

“Oh, sure. I said today at the prayer breakfast, I don't think anybody in public life, including me, is blameless. I think it's that there are general--excuse me, genuine differences that people have on issues, and they ought to express them. But our public life needs more of the spirit of reconciliation, it needs more civility, it needs more humility. Sometimes we think we know things we don't. And I think on debates over public issues, that is true as well. The American people very much want us to--they respond to these negative things, but they don't like it. The reason it keeps happening is because they respond to it. The politicians read polls, you know, and they know very often that the negative campaigns work and elect people. And they know that if you just constantly demean and run down people, like, after a while it sticks. They know that, so they keep on doing it. And the people respond to it, but they hate it. It's almost saying, ``I wish you'd lock this liquor store up so I couldn't drink anymore.'' And so somehow we have to crawl back off of this wedge because it has, as I said, it's--today people get more information that is sort of argumentative and editorial and often less accurate, and then get in a more negative context than ever before. And it is a function of the information explosion. And so I do believe that I and others have a heavier responsibility even than we might have had in a former time, when in order to just get people's attention, you might take a little license with your language, you know. Politics and Religion”