"Barack Obama "said in the last week that he really liked the ideas of the Republicans over the last 10 to 15 years, and we can give you the exact quote.

- Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democratic debate Monday in Myrtle Beach, S.C.

Hillary and Bill Clinton have slammed Barack Obama for an interview he gave to a Nevada newspaper last week in which he depicted Ronald Reagan as a transformative figure who "changed the trajectory of America." But they have taken his words out of context.

Obama did not say that he "really liked the ideas of the Republicans" in his interview with the Reno Gazette-Journal on Jan. 14. Here is the quote:

"I think it is fair to say the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time over the last 10, 15 years, in the sense they were challenging conventional wisdom. Now, you've heard it all before. You look at the economic policies when they're being debated among the presidential candidates, and it's all tax cuts. Well, you know, we've done that, we tried it. That's not really going to solve our energy problems."

Hillary Clinton has expressed admiration for Reagan on occasion. According to Rich Piatt, the publisher of the Salmon Press of New Hampshire, she recently named Reagan and George H.W. Bush as two of her favorite presidents, along with George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt and her husband, Bill Clinton, because they were "gracious and kind and they listened" and "had a very human quality."

Clinton is reading too much into Obama's remark that Republicans were the "party of ideas" and is overlooking her own kind words about Reagan.

Two Pinocchios." (Michael Dobbs, The Fact Checker, The Washington Post, January 23, 2008)