Aide: Clinton apologizes to Obama
Story Highlights
Adviser to Hillary Clinton: GOP will exploit Obama's admission of past drug use

Adviser apologizes, says Clinton campaign did not authorize comments

Barack Obama says, "People are feeling a little worried about the polls"

Latest CNN/WMUR shows Obama, Clinton tied in New Hampshire

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Sen. Hillary Clinton apologized to rival Sen. Barack Obama for an adviser's comment that Obama's admission of past drug use would hurt his chances in a general election matchup, a Clinton aide told CNN on Thursday.

Obama earlier brushed aside the adviser's remarks, saying they were probably the result of the latest poll numbers, which show the two candidates tied in the first-primary state New Hampshire.

"I just think people are feeling a little worried about the polls," Obama said Thursday.

Bill Shaheen, co-chairman of the Clinton campaign in New Hampshire, told a Washington Post reporter Wednesday that the Republicans would exploit Obama's past admission of drug use should he win the Democratic Party's presidential nomination and might even suggest Obama once dealt drugs.

"The Republicans are not going to give up without a fight ... and one of the things they're certainly going to jump on is his drug use," Shaheen said. "It'll be, 'When was the last time? Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?' There are so many openings for Republican dirty tricks. It's hard to overcome."

Shaheen, husband of former New Hampshire Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, apologized for his comments and said in a statement late Wednesday "they were not authorized by the campaign in any way."

Obama said he did not think it was Shaheen's intent to plant such a rumor. The candidate said he is not worried the remarks may damage his campaign "since it's not true."

"I don't think the American people are concerned about what I did when I was a teenager. They're concerned about what I'm going to do as a presidential candidate," he said.

Clinton on Thursday said she did not approve of Shaheen's comments. "I don't in any way condone that, and it was certainly not authorized or approved at all. It was inappropriate, and he's apologized," the senator from New York said.

Obama's camp quickly responded to Shaheen's comments.

Obama spokesman David Plouffe called the remarks "desperate," saying the "campaign is recycling old news that Barack Obama has been candid about in a book he wrote years ago, and he's talked about the lessons he's learned from these mistakes with young people all across the country."

Obama wrote in his 1995 book "Dreams of My Father" that he was once headed in the direction of a "junkie" and a "pothead."

Referring to his emotional struggles as a young man, Obama wrote, "Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though."

Obama has not shied away from bringing up his past use of drugs while on the campaign trail. He spoke candidly about his past experimentation at an event in New Hampshire last month, acknowledging that he did inhale and that "it's not something I'm proud of."

And in a statement that proved popular with the crowd, Obama said he never understood then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton's contention in 1992 that he did not inhale marijuana.

"I never understood that line," he said. "The point was to inhale. That was the point."

The latest back-and-forth between the two Democratic campaigns on the issue of Obama's electability came as a new CNN/WMUR poll showed the two candidates statistically in a dead heat in New Hampshire.

Clinton stands at 31 percent, with Obama 1 percentage point behind, well within the poll's margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

CNN's Alex Mooney and Ted Barrett contributed to this report.

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_________________
my 10 cents & abit of pissz and vinegar for free...

HOW DO PEOPLE in HOSPITALS VIEW PD? -or do they even know what it is?

sincerely -one ticked off lil Parkie...

there are lies -damn lies and stats! and azzholes that start rumors...

many of us/US have gone into hospitals where the doctors have no idea
how to treat a PD patient are we on drugs?
They even ask questions pertaining the how and why- and whatever's
of a disease they can not even cure?
I have been asked if I ever took street drugs????????????????
and I have heard ER people say they believe it to be a mystery why
our sinemet -now levodopa - carbidopa works at all?

do we have a psychological disease -therefore perhaps a self inflicted wound
thus deserving of our disease?

I do know personally many true accounts of PD patients being taken to
insane assylums, in handcuffs or in straightjackets for Parkinson disease
afflictions such as overdose -which was not overdosed by the patient...
More to the point overdosed by the doctor,
unflagged medications -that contraindicted other meds./...
Patients if you all do not speak up and get the WORD out,
The same group of finger pointers who are heavily counting on the stock market of pharma drugs to fill the bank accounts by the DOW / NASDAQ/
trading in the "Market"...

if you can call and tell your senators or congressman or those running for
President to knock off the "stone throwing" -no one is perfect -
it is what we do -not what we say -that changes lives on this earth...

WE are their market! they want us on drugs -
they want us to be afraid of the "Bird Flu" -
get in line -and your children too
need another toxic vaccine today!...
BIG BROTHER SAYS -do as I say not as I do...

this quote is the sum of my feelings

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
MartinLuther King, Jr.