Clinton: Obama, Congress once a year

by Mark Silva

President Barack Obama, who will make his first formal address to a joint session of Congress as president next week, is doing well for himself by going around Congress and talking to the people, former President Bill Clinton says.

"I can't criticize him for getting out of Washington once a week and getting out and around,'' Clinton says of Obama. "I think that's an important part of the job."

A president only gets one chance each year to address the Congress -in the annual State of the Union addresses that will start next year, and in the premier speech for the new president next week - but a president can go back to the people time and again, Clinton says in an interview with FOX News Channel's Greta Van Susteren airing tonight, in On the Record at 10 pm EST.

"One of the things that you learn in the White House is, if you're trying to... communicate a message with more than one point and it's complicated, the urge to leave Washington and get out into the country to do it gets pretty strong,'' Clinton says, "because you can't go to Congress more than once a year."

Obama will deliver an address to Congress Tuesday evening and then send his first proposed federal budget on Thursday.

(Former President Bill Clinton laughs at a joke during his introduction to a joint legislative session in the House chamber at the Arkansas state Capitol in Little Rock, Ark., this week. Photo by Danny Johnston ./AP)

Clinton, who has been calling the new president's economic stimulus "a bridge over our troubled water'' in recent interview, reiterates his support for the plan in this interview: "I think the stimulus package is well conceived.... I think they've done a very, very good job. And the American people should feel good about it...

"There must be things in that bill that the Congress or the president may not support in exactly that way if they had two more months to deal with this,'' he allows, but "there was an argument for doing that as quickly as possible....

"I get why people are worried,'' Clinton adds in the interview with Van Susteren tonight, "but we were in a circumstance where I think the president believed -- the economic team believed -- they had to move as quickly as they could.... And based on the evidence -- and I just follow it every day in the press and look at the numbers from the Federal Reserve, I would say they were right. We needed to do something in a hurry."

On the home mortgage relief plan that Obama has announced: "I think they've got a pretty good idea on the housing.

"I think they... intend to do something to help more homeowners stay in their homes, to take toxic assets off the books of the banks until the economy comes back, then they can put them back on, and they'll have value, and to put some more liquidity out there, but only if the banks actually lend this money.''

Asked about himself, the former president who has undergone heart surgery suggests that his famous hunger for cheeseburgers may be in check as he thinks of longevity lately.

"I work out, try to watch what I eat,'' he says. "I try to exercise more.... Once you get over 60, the No. One thing you can do to lengthen your life expectancy even more than exercise, according to the latest research, is to watch your caloric intake."