WJC: If Only Young Voters Knew Of The Prosperous 90s

CLARION, PA - Bill Clinton, apparently still feeling the sting of what he viewed was a personal attack by Barack Obama, said today that his comments in San Francisco were just the latest to misrepresent his legacy.

While dismissing the idea that Pennsylvanians were "bitter," Clinton said that what really "bothered" him was the idea that there was no difference in how rural Pennsylvanians fared under his administration and President Bush's.

"You have to not be able to remember it to take that kind of comment seriously," Clinton told a packed venue at Clarion University. "I've heard this since Nevada, 'Oh, there's really no difference.' In Nevada, he said, all the good ideas in the '90s Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay had. ... You gotta decide whether you agree with that or not. But let's look at the facts. The facts are our friend and often denied you."

Clinton was referring to an interview Obama did in January with the editorial board of the Reno Gazette-Journal, during which he said: "Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not." Obama did not mention Tom DeLay or Newt Gingrich, however. At the time, both Clintons responded strongly, criticizing him for praising Republican ideas.

To rebut Obama's claim, Clinton went into a lengthy, statistic-laden discussion of the country's economic growth in the last two decades, saying that the highest earners are benefitting from White House policies today, while under his administration, "we were all growing together."

"Trickle down economics doesn't work," he said.

The former president said he discusses the past not because he wants to go back, but "because there's a reason you study history here." "I've always believed that if everybody understood the differences between the '90s and this decade, more young voters would be voting for Hillary for president," he said.

(NBC/NJ's MIKE MEMOLI)