Obama's new message

[illinoisprogressive]

Barack Obama is pressing his aggressive response to Clinton in a new web advertising campaign with a new banner ad going up on Iowa and New Hampshire news websites.

It leads with the statement that "One candidate had the judgmenet to oppose the war from the start" before flashing to other statements that hit the key words of the week, irresponsible ("to send troops to war without a plan to bring them home") and "naive" ("to believe we can resolve conflicts without talking to our adversaries").

[jefferson_dem]

1. Thanks, Hillary, for the gift. She's been tethered to the chimpy / neo-con foreign policy approach.

I suspect Obama will run with this a while, and he should.

[illinoisprogressive]

2. she made a mistake to attack. Obama is going to use this. clinton just gave Obama a gift.

[ProgressiveAmPatriot]

4. A massive mistake, which was to clearly start a fight, such that he could then go after her

for her Iraq War support among other things. It was cheap to spin this as an Obama Gaffe, when she has used some of the same rhetoric in the past. Oh well, now truly naive things can be discussed.

[zanne]

19. I think so too.

I actually think she was trying to emphasize how much experience she has vs. Obama. I have a feeling she'll use this quite a bit in the coming months. I'm an Obama supporter, but I think experience is one of Hillary's strengths.

[Ethelk2044]

41. The media agrees she made a mistake

[Skip Intro]

3. Obama is being dishonest here, and it really takes him down a few notches for me.

Hillary didn't say she woudln't talk to adversaries. She just didn't, and I'd like those saying she did to quote her saying she wouldn't meet with our adversaries. She didn't say it.


I don't see Obama the way I did before. His honesty and judgement are called into question here. What kind of change is he really offering if he uses half-truths and deception to score political points?

[Ethelk2044]

5. I am glad other sites do not agree with you.

[ElizabethDC]

6. But the transcript of the debate agrees with what Skip Intro said.

which I think is the point here.

[Skip Intro]

8. Its not a matter of agreement or not agreement. He's claiming she said something she didn't.

The truth is the truth and a lie is a lie.


I had thought more highly of him.

[Colobo]

13. She did the same thing.

[Ethelk2044]

16. Hillary Supporter are like Hillary can not admit when she is wrong

[Tellurian]

20. Don't defend a Lie, Katz...it's beneath you..and you're too smart for that..

Heres a recap:

Here is the "skinny" on what the Obama supporters don't understand. Or choose denial as cover for their hero.

Obama was asked this question at the 2nd. South Carolina debate:

"In 1982, Anwar Sadat traveled to Israel, a trip that resulted in a peace agreement that has lasted ever since. In the spirit of that type of bold leadership, would you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?

The components to the question were 1) meet separately; 2) without precondition; 3) during the first year; 4) In Washington or anywhere else; 5) with leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea. Obama answered the question with “I would."

Heres what I think happened. Obama made the same mistake he made at the 1st. SC Debate. He doesn't listen to or hear the entire question OR he doesn't understand what the correct response should be. In this case, he missed 1) meet separately; 2) without precondition. He only gave #'s (3), (4), and (5) consideration before he answered.

Obama did the same thing here in the last debate:

When Brian Williams asked:

"Senator Obama, if, God forbid a thousand times, while we were gathered here tonight, we learned that two American cities have been hit simultaneously by terrorists and we further learned, beyond the shadow of a doubt it had been the work of Al Qaida, how would you change the U.S. military stance overseas as a result?"

Senator Barack Obama responded:

"Well, the first thing we'd have to do is make sure that we've got an effective emergency response, something that this administration failed to do when we had a hurricane in New Orleans.

And I think that we have to review how we operate in the event of not only a natural disaster, but also a terrorist attack.

The second thing is to make sure that we've got good intelligence, a., to find out that we don't have other threats and attacks potentially out there, and b., to find out, do we have any intelligence on who might have carried it out so that we can take potentially some action to dismantle that network.

But what we can't do is then alienate the world community based on faulty intelligence, based on bluster and bombast. Instead, the next thing we would have to do, in addition to talking to the American people, is making sure that we are talking to the international community.

Because as already been stated, we're not going to defeat terrorists on our own. We've got to strengthen our intelligence relationships with them, and they've got to feel a stake in our security by recognizing that we have mutual security interests at stake."

Consensus of opinion is Senator Clinton gave the correct answer here:

When Brian Williams asked Senator Clinton:

"Senator Clinton, same question." (He also previously asked it of former Senator Edwards, but his response wasn't discussed by the analysts.)

Senator Hillary Clinton's response:

"Well, again, having been a senator during 9/11, I understand very well the extraordinary horror of that kind of an attack and the impact that it has, far beyond those that are directly affected.

I think a president must move as swiftly as is prudent to retaliate.

If we are attacked, and we can determine who is behind that attack, and if there are nations that supported or gave material aid to those who attacked us, I believe we should quickly respond."

Technically at this point, another 'inept' response to a presidential question would be Obama's Third Strike against him.

[ProgressiveAmPatriot]

7. It is not what she said in the debate, it is the way she spun it

If you go back and look at his campaign's initial response was that Clinton and him more or less said the same thing. Then Hillary Clinton called him naive for saying what he did, which is what really got this whole thing started. This was a complete non-issue until Clinton made it an issue by calling Obama naive and saying herself that their positions differed.

[ellacott]

9. Agreed, she also called him irresponsible

She started the fight and is now upset with how he's fighting back. She's tried to pick fights with him from the very beginning. I don't see her picking fights with any other candidates. This is all staged and calculated on her part and Hillary's going down in my book because of this nonsense.

[ProgressiveAmPatriot]

10. Inside the Beltway they all think Hillary has scored points on this, but

everyone else just thinks it is nuts. She has used some of the same rhetoric and then she takes a shot at Obama for saying we should talk to everyone. This may play well with beltway columnists and self-proclaimed foreign policy experts, but everyone else is just rolling their eyes trying to figure out why Clinton made this an issue. A gaffe??? This is exactly what Obama needed. Naive, try voting for the Iraq War.

[Zueda]

11. Your right, techinally, but her spokesman pretty much confirmed she wouldn't

Last night on hardball Wolfonson continuously added "Who is a holocaust denier!" whenever he mentioned Ahmadinejad name. As if anyone who talks to him agrees with him. So If she becomes the next pres will she (by her own campaigns viewpoint) want to become labeled as a holocaust denier?

[sandnsea]

17. And he didn't say he'd invite them over for tea and cookies

She chose to distort what he said. And she did say she would be afraid of meeting with them because they'd damage the prestige of her Presidency. And she also said we had to "stay the course" in Iraq when most of the rest of the party already knew we'd been lied into that war and had no business being there. She really is not going to change our standing in the world all that much. That's the truth.

[Dawgs]

21. Why are you trying to pretend that you haven't always been a Hillary support?

Just admit it. You support someone that voted for Bush's war over someone that has always been against it.

Obama was right then, and he's right now.

[Skip Intro]

25. Obama was right then and Hillary was wrong - dead wrong. But that's not the subject at hand.

In this dust-up Obamba has shown himself to not be above using half-truths and distortion as an end to his means, in this case deflecting attention from his lacking answer at the debates and his "elaboration" the next day.


Its not that I am or am not a Hillary supporter - if she gets the nom, tho, I will support her. In the meantime, I cannot just read something that is twisted and untrue, at its heart dishonest, and not point it out. That's all I'm doing.

[draft_mario_cuomo]

30. Plus he is claiming he was the only candidate to oppose the IWR. Kucinich anyone?

Kucinich opposed the war and never voted to finance the war, unlike one Barack Obama. The only true anti-war candidate is Kucinich. If Obama continues this Kucinich is going to have to hammer home the truth during future debates more than he did in the last debate...

[Lucinda]

31. Yup...me too I'm still deciding, and this makes a difference for me re:Obama

Either poor judgement on his part....or same old political spin...either way it's a dissapointment

[killbotfactory]

35. She said she wouldn't meet our enemies without preconditions

preconditions hasn't been defined.

The way it was stated in the question, and the way Obama interpereted it, it is referring to the preconditions Bush has been using to block any diplomacy. Using diplomacy as a reward to enemy nations who kiss his feet. Obama is absolutely right to say anyone who would follow the same or similar path of non-negotiations until they do something we want is Bush-Cheney light.

Clinton used to hold that position, saying "you don't make peace with your friends" etc, but the temptation to attack Obama for this was just too great, and her position has now changed into not meeting with our enemies unless our preconditions are met, and since they are dictators and anti-semites, it's okay.

[Ethelk2044]

42. No he is not being dishonest. Hillary is.. she said the samething several times.

[beastieboy]

12. Politics of DOPE!

I just thought of that!

[polichick]

14. Hillary might be regretting things about now...

But I think it's good that this is out in the open ~ it's important for us to know what each candidate's foreign policy approach would look like.

[sandnsea]

15. "stay the course" Hillary

She said it herself. If we want change, she isn't the one who is going to bring it.

[flpoljunkie]

37. Code Pink: Hillary Iraq Timeline Still hedging about troop withdrawal in January, 2007

January 2007: Hillary says that it was President Bush’s “decision to go to war with an ill-conceived plan and an incompetently executed strategy." She adds, “We expect him to extricate our country from this before he leaves office,” e.g., before 2009, but she hedges when asked if this means troop withdrawal by then. In short, Hillary once again makes it clear that her ever-changing positions on the war are tied completely to her domestic political calculations

http://www.listenhillary.org/article.php?id=762

more...

[ericgtr]

18. She's asked for this

and now she and her supporters are going to be on the defensive until she can come back with a decent response, which even Obama has diplomatically asked for.

[Tellurian]

22. How many Obama-lite supporters will defend his Lie..

to their own detriment?

[ericgtr]

23. Twist on words?

However it is spun she did call him (or his statement) both naive and irresponsible. Should he stick by his words and defend them or just lie back and take it?

[Tellurian]

27. Calling Hillary Bush/Cheney lite is swiftboating a fellow democrat..

Thats why I say Obama has no-class and is a hypocrite. He's all about pie-in-the-sky ideals, which he himself dishonors.

[killbotfactory]

33. swiftboating?

Oh jesus christ...

[TeamJordan23]

40. She did vote for the Bush/Cheney Iraq War. Never spoke up against it. nm

[rinsd]

44. "Never spoke up against it"

Ya know there is plenty to argue about from Hillary;s record

Why do you and the the other two chuckleheads from Team Smear-4-Obama feel the need to lie?

[jean]

24. Too many words. And really, he is a newbie on foreign policy compared to Sen Clinton

[zulchzulu]

29. Getting duped and voting for the Iraq War authorization is "experience" we don't need

If you think it was smart...well..tell me how many have died because of her "silly" vote...yunno, the one she won't apologize for.

Watch her sink in her arrogance.

[jean]

32. I didn't indicate support for Clinton - just saying, Obama is a newbie in that area, he'll learn as

he goes

[Tellurian]

38. So did Kerry and Biden..

so what the big whoop?

[Ethelk2044]

43. Kerry is not running. Biden will have to speak for himself.

[goodgd_yall]

26. Much ado about nothing

I don't understand the big deal over what Clinton said. This is a contest. Saying a policy or action would be or is naive or whatever is part of the game. It's not like she called him stupid.

[BeyondGeography]

34. Naive + Irresponsible = Stupid

Try again.

[goodgd_yall]

46. Finessing one's words makes all the difference n/t

[goodgd_yall]

45. self delete

[zulchzulu]

28. Clinton wanted the gloves off...guess what...she better duck

She opened up a can of worms when she jumped the shark.

[ShortnFiery]

36. A friendly democratic kick for the evening crowd.

:patriot: GO OBAMA! :yourock:

[thatsrightimirish]

39. I think Obama won this round

Clinton didn't need to start this fight. However, I still see Clinton winning in the end.