Bill Clinton On Cindy Sheehan

This is the way a president should deal with such a situation. Not cover his ass.

Former President Clinton was on Larry King Live yesterday. Larry King asked him if President Bush should have met with Cindy Sheehan.

KING: Should the president have met with the lady who lost her son?

CLINTON: I think he'd seen her once before. You know, I think I would have but that's a question only he can answer.

KING: But you would have.

CLINTON: Yes, you know, I met with the people that I gave the Medal of Honor to, people who -- some people who were killed on Black Hawk Down and one of the fathers was very angry at me and I knew it. And he said some really rough things to me and...

KING: How do you handle that?

CLINTON: It wasn't easy but I thought I owed it to him. His son gave his life in the service of this country and this father served in Vietnam, was a veteran. I thought that he had the right to say to me whatever he wanted to say. There is no greater pain in life than having a child die before you.There is nothing worse and I had sent his son into harm's way. And the thing was not managed as it should have been. And he was -- as far as I was concerned, he'd earned the right to say whatever he wanted to me. And if he felt better when it was over, then it was a precious little thing I could do is to take the heat coming in.