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Meet people on Wednesday, April 30, 2008 10:46:57 PM
HILLARY Clinton has weighed in on Democratic foe Barack Obama's latest bid to end a row over his former pastor, branding Reverend Jeremiah Wright's comments "outrageous" and "offensive".
Senator Clinton was gearing up for her next White House nominating clashes with Senatorm Obama in Indiana and North Carolina next week, and made her most expansive comments yet on the affair, which erupted again this week.
"Well, I take offence," Senator Clinton said when asked about Rev Wright's comments in her first interview with Fox News Channel's host Bill O'Reilly, who has been a fierce critic of Democrats.
"I think it's offensive and outrageous. I'm going to express my opinion, others can express theirs," Senator Clinton said in excerpts of the interview published on the Fox website.
"It is part of just, you know, an atmosphere we're in today," Senator Clinton said, in the interview taped today in Indiana.
Senator Clinton has previously said she would not have remained as a member of Rev Wright's church in Chicago, had she heard such incendiary statements.
In a surprise news conference yesterday, Senator Obama said he was outraged by Rev Wright's comments, and cast loose his friend of 20 years in a bid to mend damage to his White House hopes at a key moment of the campaign.
Among his fiery sermons, Rev Wright once claimed AIDS was a racist government plot and suggested after the September 11 attacks that blacks sing "God Damn America".
"I have known Reverend Wright for almost 20 years," he said of the man who conducted his marriage and baptised his two daughters, a day after Rev Wright spoke to reporters in Washington.
"The person I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago."
Senator Clinton was also asked in the interview about the conventional political wisdom that she is a polarising figure.
"Well, I've been around a long time. I bear a lot of the scars, ideological and political battles, I stand up for what I believe in," she said.