Did Bill Clinton ever REALLY SAY the words, “I feel your pain”? If so, when and in what context?
Google, “clinton i feel your pain”.
http://www.actupny.org/campaign96/rafsky-clinton.html
Is there money riding on this?
I HAD googoled and found this link, but found it unsatisfactory. The link to the streaming video doesn’t work, so I can’t determine anything more about the exchange than what is quoted on the web page.
If this IS the source for “I feel your pain”, this is astonishing. Most presidential tag lines, like Reagan’s “There you go again” or Nixon’s “(I) am not a crook”, were delivered during debates or nationally televised speeches. This event is described as a “fundraiser” which I presume was not even televised. How did these four words, delivered in the heat of a spontaneous confrontation and not heavily reported outside of New York, become the basis of all latter-day Clinton impersonations?
Democrats liked it because they thought it made their man look empathic, caring and thoughtful.
Republicans liked it because they though it made the other guy’s man look like a touchy-feely hippie leftover.
In any event, short memorable phrases always outlive longer verbiage. Can anyone recite from memory the major points of Clinton’s 1995 State of the Union address?
Jimmy Carter said it first in his famous “malaise” speech (in which he never said “malaise”, but alluded to it as a “crisis of confidence”).
You can watch the speech on RealPlayer. You can also read the full transcript.