Book: Bill Clinton called Obama 'incompetent'

NEW YORK, June 2 (UPI) -- Former U.S. President Clinton called President Obama "incompetent" and "an amateur," a new book out this week alleges.

Edward Klein's new book, "The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House" (Regnery Publishing) also states campaign sources said Clinton extracted a promise from Obama to support his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for president in 2016 in return for the former president's backing in 2012, the New York Post reported Sunday.

In a piece for the Post adapted from his book, Klein said in 2011 Bill Clinton wanted Hillary to challenge Obama in 2012, a gambit she declined. Klein said two people who attended the meeting with the former president in Chappaqua, N.Y., recounted how Bill Clinton then went on a tirade against the sitting president.

"I've heard more from Bush, asking for my advice, than I've heard from Obama," Klein said his sources quoted Clinton as saying. "I have no relationship with the president -- none whatsoever. Obama doesn't know how to be president. He doesn't know how the world works. He's incompetent. He's an amateur!"

Klein said Obama resisted giving Bill Clinton a role in his re-election bid but went along with the advice of adviser David Axelrod when his race against Republican candidate Mitt Romney tightened.

Bill Clinton agreed to give a sterling endorsement of Obama with Obama agreeing to do the same for Hillary Clinton, said Klein, a former Newsweek foreign editor and ex-editor in chief of The New Times Magazine who has written books about Obama, Hillary Clinton and the Kennedys.