Misleading Attack: Sen. Obama Flubs in Ohio

[NewHampster]

From the Clinton Campaign

3/2/2008
Misleading Attack: Sen. Obama Flubs in Ohio

Earlier today, Sen. Obama attacked Hillary on Iraq by invoking Sen. Rockefeller and incorrectly saying that the WVA Senator opposed the 2002 Iraq vote. The truth is that Sen. Rockefeller voted for the war resolution - not against it as Sen. Obama suggested to the people of Ohio. This seems to be an Obama campaign talking point since its top strategist also claimed that Sen. Rockefeller voted against the war resolution when he was on national television this morning.

"Sen. Obama is so desperate to divert attention from his limited national security experience that he's not just misleading voters about Sen. Clinton, he's also misleading voters about his own supporters. That is not change you can believe in." -- Clinton spokesperson Phil Singer

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[GoreVidalIsGod]

1. This has already been discredited. He was talking about Nunn, not Rockefeller.

[slinkerwink]

2. it was Graham he was talking about.

[NewHampster]

4. maybe he's not sure who he was talking about

Until I see other evidence I believe he flubbed

[GoreVidalIsGod]

6. Cool! Just like Bush believing WMDs in Iraq!

[Dems Will Win]

9. There is no flub, He said Jay Rockefeller read it - TRUE then he said the Chairman of the

Intelligence Committee AT THE TIME read it -- ALSO TRUE. Then he said the Chairman at the time, who was Bob Graham, told the other Senators in a Democratic Caucus, I read it, that's why I'm voting agains the war.

He can't have been saying Rockefeller was the Chairman at the time because Graham was in 2002, and of course he knows that. Only despearte Hilbots would pounce on that one.

So where's the flub?

I know this history quite well and can take you to the cleaners on it so bring it on!


Where is the evidence that Obama knows not what he is talking about??

He only mentioned that Jay Rockefeller read it, that it was easy to go read it, not that Rock voted for it.

[tabasco]

24. Thank you.

The sliming continues.

[NewHampster]

28. here is the Axe

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4373608

[Maribelle]

50. He clearly lied at about 4 mins some odd seconds.

He said Jay Rockefeller was against the war, yet the link below shows he voted for the IWR

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=2&vote=00237

[mattclearing]

51. But what use are facts to the kitchen sink brigade? n/t

[bellasgrams]

22. Or deliberately lied thinking no one would notice.

[NewHampster]

20. here's the link

dink http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4373608

[jackson_dem]

35. Nunn voted the same way Obama did on the AUMF

[thunder rising]

3. But Hillary jumped all over it. Hillary is desperate to divert attention from her Iraq vote.

[NewHampster]

5. No

Hillary just likes to point out Obama's bullshit.

[Zhade]

12. Dude, YOUR bullshit was just debunked TWO POSTS ABOVE YOURS.

Fucking desperate. I love it. See ya Tuesday after Clinton loses!

[JorgeTheGood]

7. The guy didn't know

there are Al-Quida in Iraq -- why should it be surprising he doesn't know who did or did not vote for the IWR?

He's seriously uninformed.

[tabatha]

10. Obama did know that there were Al Queda in Iraq.

He said that there were no Al Queda in Iraq before Bush went in.

What McCain did was take Obama's answer to a hypothetical and turn it into a dishonest charge.

If you watched the last debate, Obama was asked what if, after removing the troops from Iraq, a problem emerged with Al Queda in Iraq. Obama said he would go back into Iraq to deal with them.

Of course Obama knew that Al Queda are in Iraq.

Can you tell me what %of the fighters in Iraq are Al Queda?

[Garbo 2004]

13. A John McCain talking point? You're going with that? n/t

[JorgeTheGood]

31. get used to it ... n/t

[Political Heretic]

43. Not from people with posting priviledges on DU.

[Infinite Hope]

8. On one of the Sunday morning shows, Rockefeller was said to have opposed it.

I'm not sure if Axelrod said it or if it was Bill Schaffer (sp).

[boston bean]

11. Axelrod on This Week said Rockefeller voted against it.

He was using it to support O's opposition and great judgement.

[NewHampster]

15. Thanks for the confirmation

MassDemm :toast:

[boston bean]

17. Here is a link, go to minute 3:50

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4373608

[NewHampster]

19. Can't hear Axelrod at all

my computer must be immune

[boston bean]

21. lol go here then...

http://abcnews.go.com/thisweek

scroll down to videos and pick "ready on day one"

or were you being facetious?

[Marie26]

38. You're kidding

That's a blatant lie right there.

[Maribelle]

46. Why did Axelrod claim on 'This Week' that Jay Rockefeller opposed the war in Iraq?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4847175

[Marie26]

47. Maybe it was just a mistake.

Kind of an embarrasing one though.

[MadBadger]

14. I read up to From the Clinton Campaign

I was expecting a real source

[KAZ]

16. Stuff your sig line. You want to make fun o DU, do it on

your dime.

[NewHampster]

18. this is on my dime

been donating and supporting this church since ought 3

[Bluerthanblue]

23. you aren't native NH are you?

:shrug:



peace~

[NewHampster]

27. Only since '76

Not an Abinaki either

[Bluerthanblue]

29. there aren't

many of either of us left.

Peace~

[NewHampster]

30. Shaheen for Senate launch

Sunday the 9th, 2 PM(I think) at the Fir St. office.

[Johnny__Motown]

25. Got to agree, he said something wrong there. we need a clarification.

[avrdream]

36. Agree with you on that.

Love the quick response team of BO's here on DU, though.

I read the link and it sounds like he is talking about Rockefeller.

[MercutioATC]

26. Rockefeller (Dem or not) can bite my ass.

Solely because of his refusal to budge on his insistence that private pilots pay user fees to access air traffic control services, Congress has been unable to pass legislation that would get air traffic controllers a contract (we've been working without a contract for almost 2 years).

On this one issue, he's screwing labor worse than any Republican ever could.

[Name removed]

33. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Tom Joad]

32. Obviously, Hillary clinton not only flubbed, but totally fucked up by supporting the IWR

Making our nation insecure.
Just whose side is she on?

[CatnHat]

34. K&R

Obama will say or do anything to get votes. Obama must be that desperate!!; can't get his story straight, as usual.

[NewHampster]

37. monday morning kick

:kick:

[rodeodance]

40. k

[rodeodance]

41. REC

[UALRBSofL]

39. Which ever Rockefeller he was talking about

the media called him on it an he had to explain what he meant. :)

[Maribelle]

42. He surly did flub in Ohio.

Obama was trying to shoot down Hillary's contention that his entire candidacy is merely built around this Iraq opposition anti-war speech he made in October of 2002. And Hillary is totally correct on this.


Where Obama flubbed is he said Bob Graham said "I don't know what all that experience got her, because I have the experience to know that...if the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee says you should read this, this is why I voted against the war, then you should probably read it," said Obama.

Bob Graham never said " this is why I voted against the war". Obama is both a liar and a foreign policy knucklehead.

[Dems Will Win]

44. Sorry you are the liar. Graham did say that in Democratic Caucus

just before the vote. Why do YOU lie?

[Maribelle]

45. Bob Graham: What I Knew Before the Invasion

http://jre-whatsnottolike.com/2005/11/20/bob-graham-what-i-knew-before-the-invasion/

[Dems Will Win]

48. From the NY Times:

On Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2002, Senate Democrats, including Clinton, held a caucus over lunch on the second floor of the Capitol. There, Graham says he “forcefully” urged his colleagues to read the complete 90-page N.I.E. before casting such a monumental vote.

In her own remarks on the Senate floor on Oct. 10, 2002, Clinton noted the existence of “differing opinions within this body.” Then she went on to offer a lengthy catalog of Saddam Hussein’s crimes. She cited unnamed “intelligence reports” showing that between 1998 and 2002 “Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile-delivery capability and his nuclear program.” Both the public and secret intelligence estimates on Iraq contained such analysis, but the complete N.I.E. report also included other views. A dissent by the State Department’s intelligence arm concluded — correctly, as it turned out — that Iraq was not rebuilding its nuclear program. Clinton continued, accusing Iraq’s leader of giving “aid, comfort and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members.” This statement fit squarely within the ominous warning she issued the day after Sept. 11.

Clinton’s linking of Iraq’s leader and Al Qaeda, however, was unsupported by the conclusions of the N.I.E. and other secret intelligence reports that were available to senators before the vote. Indeed, the one document that supported Clinton’s statement, a public letter from the C.I.A. to Senator Graham, mentioned “growing indications of a relationship” between Al Qaeda and Iraq but acknowledged that those indications were based on “sources of varying reliability.” In fact, the classified reports available to all senators at the time found that Iraq was not allied with Al Qaeda, and that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden harbored feelings of deep mistrust and enmity for each other. A Defense Intelligence Agency report in February 2002, disclosed by Senator Carl Levin of Michigan in 2005, concluded: “Saddam’s regime is intensely secular and is wary of Islamic revolutionary movements. Moreover, Baghdad is unlikely to provide assistance to a group it cannot control.” A C.I.A. report of June 21, 2002, partially released in 2006, said, “The ties between Saddam and Bin Laden appear much like those between rival intelligence services, with each trying to exploit the other for its own benefit.” In an interview, Bob Graham said: “I don’t think any agency pretended to make a case that there was a strong linkage between Saddam Hussein and 9/11. It wasn’t in the N.I.E.”

Nevertheless, on the sensitive issue of collaboration between Al Qaeda and Iraq, Senator Clinton found herself adopting the same argument that was being aggressively pushed by the administration. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other administration officials had repeated their claim frequently, and by early October 2002, two out of three Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was connected to the Sept. 11 attacks. By contrast, most of the other Senate Democrats, even those who voted for the war authorization, did not make the Qaeda connection in their remarks on the Senate floor. One Democratic senator who voted for the war resolution and praised President Bush for his course of “moderation and deliberation,” Joe Biden of Delaware, actively assailed the reports of Al Qaeda in Iraq, calling them “much exaggerated.” Senator Dianne Feinstein of California described any link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda as “tenuous.”

The Democratic senator who came closest to echoing Clinton’s remarks about Hussein’s supposed assistance to Al Qaeda was Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut. Yet even Lieberman noted that “the relationship between Al Qaeda and Saddam’s regime is a subject of intense debate within the intelligence community.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/29/magazine/03Hillary-t.html?pagewanted=3

Don't you see this issue just keeps getting worse for your candidate? Let's keep talking!

[Maribelle]

49. Bob Graham did not base his vote against the IWR on the NIE. Obama lied.

Could you try to stick to the subject?


I could spend the next week debunking some things in the body of your post, alone, never mind the information contained in the NYT magazine. For instance, in Hillary's floor speech she said there was nothing to connect Saddam Hussein with Al Qaeda on 9/11. Please. Let's get back to the subject at hand.

[GoldieAZ49]

52. just saw the clip of Obama on CNN, he was talking about Rockerfeller

voting against the war, which he didn't

not a very convincing pitch, when it is wrong and he wasn't in the senate...is he unraveling?

[NewHampster]

53. The Emperor

Has no clothes.

[libbygurl]

54. Totally naked. With teleprompters, though. nt