Laura Bush calls Hillary Clinton 'out of bounds'

TURIN, Italy - US first lady Laura Bush has called Hillary Clinton "out of bounds" for a recent attack on her husband, US President George W. Bush.

Senator Clinton, herself a former first lady and pondering a run for the presidency in 2008, has begun to intensify her criticism of the Bush administration, recently saying it could go down in history as among the worst ever.

"Of course I think it's out of bounds," Mrs Bush told America's ABC News from Turin, where she attended opening events at the Winter Olympics. "But I think it's politics, it's certainly politics."

The Bush and Clinton families have a complicated relationship. President Bush and his former president father George senior, both Republicans, get on well with former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat. However, the Bush family does not want to see Clinton's wife, the former first lady, win the presidency in 2008.

A rich political tapestry was evident at the funeral last week in Atlanta for Coretta Scott King, the widow of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, with the Bush and Clinton families gathered along with former President Jimmy Carter.

At that event, former President Clinton gave a hint of his thinking about who should win in 2008. He noted that former presidents were present, as was the current president, and then he gestured to his wife to suggest she was the future president.

Mrs Bush said the two Bush presidents and Clinton "are in a club together and really I think wives of the presidents are in a club, as well".

She said: "We know what it's like to live in that house. We certainly know what it's like to have your husband criticised. So I think there's a certain empathy that we might have for each other that we wouldn't have maybe for somebody else who said something like that."

Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican National Committee, has said Senator Clinton's attack was an example of anger and that Americans do not like to elect angry candidates.

- REUTERS