by John McCormick, updated
WESTERVILLE, Ohio – Responding to comments made by Hillary Clinton earlier today in the same town, Barack Obama had his shots ready when he arrived at a high school gymnasium for a Sunday afternoon event.
"Sen. Clinton continues to insist that we provide speeches and she provides solutions," he said. "The press has sort of bought into this, I think, because they, you know, want to keep the contest interesting, and I understand that."
But Obama said he has provided specifics on "every issue under the sun" and that her claims of foreign-policy experience are overblown.
"She has, supposedly, all this vast foreign policy experience," he said. "I have to say, when it came to making the most important foreign policy decision of our generation -- the decision to invade Iraq -- Sen. Clinton got it wrong. She didn't read the nation intelligence estimates…I have enough experience to know that if you have a national intelligence estimate, and the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee says you should read this -- this is why I'm voting against the war -- then you should probably read it."
moreHillary Dec. 2007:
Following up on what Ambassador Richard Holbrooke told us earlier this week regarding Hillary Clinton's vote to authorize the use of military force against Iraq, we asked Sen. Clinton today if it was correct that Colin Powell had persuaded her that the resolution could be a vote to avoid war rather than a vote for war.
She replied: "No, it wasn't Colin Powell. it was Condi Rice. Condi Rice told me specifically when I was still weighing all of the evidence, and I had been to the White House one last time – I think, if I'm not mistaken, it was Oct. 8 -- and I'd had the whole presentation by the CIA and others and I hadn't asked any questions, I had listened. And
I went back to my office, and Condi Rice called me and said, You didn't ask any questions, do you have any questions? I said I only have one: Will you use this authorization to put inspectors back in, so that we can find out whether any of this is true, how much WMD he still has or has reconstituted? She said, Yes, that's what it's intended to do. I think Dick might have gotten confused."
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KERRY: Well, first of all, Wolf, the question applies to both of them. And the person asking the question really is culpable here of a fear tactic. I might add, you know, most of the time
I think people are going to hear that phone ringing, and they're going to rush to answer the phone and not see the ad.But leaving that aside, it strikes me that the ad is really deception and disingenuous. Hillary Clinton has never received a 3 a.m. in the morning telephone call as a senator or as a first lady. And secondly, when asked, when her campaign was asked, well, what crisis has she ever faced in which she's made a difference in foreign policy, they really couldn't answer.
They tried to say, well, she made a speech in China or something like that. The fact is that she had a red phone moment, as Barack Obama said. Her red phone moment was on the war in Iraq, and she chose the Bush course, the wrong course.
She had a red phone moment in Iran. When Senator Dodd, Senator Biden, Senator Obama, myself opposed the policy, she chose the Bush policy on Iran. She had a red phone moment. The fact is that Barack Obama comes to this race with more experience than George Bush, Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton had in foreign policy at the national level. And the fact is that he has proven that it's his judgment that is correct. That's what the American people are voting for, and I believe they will see clearly that's a scare tactic. And in fact, it raises an issue which falls, in my judgment, in Barack Obama's favor.
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musicOh and from Kerry: "they're going to rush to answer the phone and not see the ad."
:rofl: