Attacking Clinton
Posted: Wednesday, September 26, 2007 11:18 PM by Domenico Montanaro
From NBC's Lauren Appelbaum
As we predicted,
many of the candidates attacked Hillary Clinton tonight. Edwards was
first, attacking her on her Iraq policy and then on voting today to
"authorize the first step of war with Iran." On this bill, Gravel told
Clinton, "I am ashamed at you for voting for it."
Richardson also
went after Clinton on her Iraq policy. He later attacked Obama,
Edwards, and Clinton for not saying they will remove all troops from
Iraq by the end of their first term.
Obama knocked Clinton on
her failed health care policy during her husband's administration,
telling her the reason it was lonely is because she "closed the door to
Republicans," who did want to reform health care. When he was later
asked if "turning the page" is directed at Bush or Clinton or both,
Obama resisted the chance to attack Clinton and simply said he wants to
end "divisive politics in the country."
Dodd attacked
Clinton only when provoked -- and then just barely. Tim Russert asked
Dodd what he meant when he issued a press release saying he understood
why Bush would want her to be the Democratic nominee. Tonight, Dodd
qualified it, saying Bush had a bad record. "He was the same guy who
said way to go Brownie ... and mission accomplished." Then he
backtracked on the line, saying he was being "facetious."
Biden
then took his turn and accused Clinton of being too polarizing a
candidate. Kucinich was the only candidate who did not directly attack
Clinton.
Clinton, for her part, told the audience she agrees
with her opponents on several occasions, saying she agreed with Obama
three times, Biden twice, and Edwards once. Giuliani also
suffered some attacks, from Obama and Biden. Biden called Giuliani "the
most uniformed person in American foreign policy, and now running for
president."
