Clinton faces precocious questioner

KINGSTREE, S.C. – During a day marked by sparring with reporters, Bill Clinton fielded perhaps his toughest question Wednesday from a 5-year-old.

“What do you do when you get married?” McKenna Chance asked the former president.

Laughter erupted from the crowd of about 400 people gathered at a recreation center. Clinton paced the stage for several moments. Then he pointed to the back of the room at the media horde that’s been following him as he campaigns for his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“See all the press people back there? They put me through the wringer this morning, and everything I said is about to pale in comparison to what I’m now going to say,” Clinton said.

But the remarks were rather innocuous. The best things about being married, he said, are spending your life with your best friend and having children.

“The best moment of my life, I think, was that I was in the hospital, in the room, with my wife when our daughter was born,” he said.

Earlier Wednesday, during a heated exchange with a CNN reporter, Clinton said his wife’s rival, Barack Obama, and the media had stirred up tensions over race.