Bill Clinton goes off the reservation again: Call for the entire Bush Tax cuts to be extended

From CNBC:

[Clinton] called the current economic conditions a "recession" and said overzealous Republican plans to cut the deficit threaten to plunge the country further into the debt abyss.
"What I think we need to do is find some way to avoid the fiscal cliff, to avoid doing anything that would contract the economy now, and then deal with what's necessary in the long term debt-reduction plans as soon as they can, which presumably would be after the election," Clinton said. . . .
However, Clinton did say that Congress would be best off agreeing, at least for the time being, to extend all the tax cuts that are set to expire at the end of the year, including the so-called Bush tax cuts named after Clinton's successor, George W. Bush. . . . .

UPDATE: Politico claims that these off the reservation statements were all by accident.  Is this just part of the attempt to make things right?

. . . Clinton’s team was as aghast as Obama’s at how the boss had wandered blithely into remarks that left even sympathetic listeners wondering what exactly he was getting at. He also gave gleeful Republicans an opening to skewer Obama with a popular Democrat’s own words.
Clinton, in a ritual that would be familiar to anyone who has worked for him during the past 20 years, protested that his words were being wrested from context and blamed a manipulative news media for stirring up trouble to satisfy its own lust for chaos and conflict.
But his own team, and eventually Clinton himself, agreed there was no choice but to issue embarrassing what-the-former-president-meant-to-say clarifications, which were crafted in close consultation with senior Obama aides at the White House and campaign headquarters in Chicago, according to people involved in the negotiations. . . .