New York, Aug 5: Former US president Bill Clinton, whose role in Democrat presidential hopeful Barack Obama's election campaign remains to be worked out, is still far away from saying that Obama was ready to don the mantle of US President.

He said that even if one holds the office of the country’s Vice-president for eight years, it’s not sure that he would be ready to take on the pressures of the Office of US President.

“You can argue that nobody is ready to be President. I certainly learned a lot about the job in the first year. You can argue that even if you've been vice president for eight years, that no one can be fully ready for the pressures of the office,” the Daily News quoted the ex-president as saying in an interview with ABC from Rwanda.

According to the report, that's probably not what the Obama campaign wanted to hear from the former commander in chief. It also could aggravate Obama supporters who were annoyed that Bill Clinton took what seemed to them too long to even have a conversation with the Illinois senator after he knocked Hillary Clinton from the race.

But, Bill did have some words of praise for Obama, a man he and the Hillary Clinton campaign had trashed relentlessly during the primaries as an “empty suit whose rhetoric didn't live up to his actions”.

“His strategic sense and his ability to run an effective campaign - he clearly can inspire and motivate people and energize them which is a very important part of being President. And he's smart as a whip so there's nothing he can't learn,” Clinton said. (ANI)