Oh-eight (D): Bill and Iraq
Posted: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 9:11 AM by Mark Murray
Filed Under:
Democrats
BIDEN: Biden does his turn with CBN's David Brody, who writes: “Joe Biden is not a big fan of all the macho tough war talk coming from Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and the other Republican candidates. As for Giuliani, well that's another matter. When I asked Biden in my one on one interview if he believed there was a global war on terror, he responded yes. I mentioned how Giuliani likes to get on the Democrats because they don't like to use the words ‘Islamic Terrorists.’ Biden responded this way. Watch above. Read below.
Brody: Some Republicans like Giuliani and others said that some Democratic candidates refuse to talk about a global war on terror and Islamic terrorists. Do you believe there is a global war on terror?
Biden: Sure there is, but with these guys, he knows so little about foreign policy he confuses terrorists cells and organizations with countries. There was no al-Qaeda in Iraq before this war. Al-Qaeda became a Bush-fulfilling prophecy. It didn't exist until Bush went to war. Even our own intelligence community says that. But these guys buy into this silliness that if you don't fight them in Baghdad you're going to fight them in Boston. Give me a break…. I can hardly wait to debate these guys. The only guy on that side with any knowledge about foreign policy is John McCain.”
CLINTON: It's probably fitting that on a day when Bill Clinton promised that Hillary Clinton would bring America "back to the future," that longtime Clinton reporter,
Ron Fournier, was on the road covering the ex-president. And leave it to Fournier to catch Clinton on Iraq. "Showing inconsistency on an issue that has dogged his wife, the former president also told Iowa Democrats that he ‘opposed (war in) Iraq from the beginning.’” More: “He has not clearly opposed the war from the start. Like his wife, the former president has been critical of the Iraq war in recent months, but at one time he gave President Bush the benefit of the doubt. ‘I supported the president when he asked for authority to stand up against weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,’ he said in May 2003, the same year he was quoted praising Bush's handling of the war.”
“Asked about the discrepancy, Clinton aides said Tuesday's comment was a short-handed explanation of his long-held views that weapons inspectors should have been given more time in Iraq. ‘As he said before the war and many times since, President Clinton disagreed with taking the country to war without allowing the weapons inspectors to finish their jobs,’ said spokesman Jay Carson.
The New York Times also fact-checks Bill's assertion that he was against the Iraq war from the beginning. "Advisers to Mr. Clinton said yesterday that he did oppose the war, but that it would have been inappropriate at the time for him, a former president, to oppose — in a direct, full-throated manner — the sitting president’s military decision. Mr. Clinton has said several times since the war began that he would not have attacked Iraq in the manner that President Bush had done. As early as June 2004, he said, ‘I would not have done it until after Hans Blix finished the job,’ referring to the weapons inspections there before the war."
NBC/NJ's Carrie Dann notes at Bill's final stop in Iowa last night, he addressed the health care issue again. "I get tickled when people say we failed on health care. Oh did we? Harry Truman failed, was he wrong to try? Jimmy Carter failed, was he wrong to try? Lyndon Johnson knew he couldn't get it done, he didn't even try… We were the only people who only ever got a bill out of committee in Congress. That is part of the reason we were prosperous. We got health care costs under control, reduced the number of people without insurance."
He also described a straw poll taken in European countries in which Hillary beat all of her Democratic and Republican rivals. The closest ratio was in Italy (35% Clinton, 17% Giuliani) "The older Italian guys stuck with the homeboy. I thought that was all right. I like that," Bill said to much laughter.
Does a day go by anymore when Hillary isn't making a veiled contrast with Obama? NBC/NJ's Athena Jones notes that in South Carolina yesterday, Clinton talked about her plan to spend $1 billion on programs to help cut the high school drop-out rate in half for minorities. The senator spoke at a middle school Tuesday in South Carolina’s Marlboro County, along the so-called “Corridor of Shame”, a rural region with numerous under-funded schools. “When I’m president, I hope I can turn that into a “Corridor of fame,” she said. “I think it’s time to stop wringing our hands and roll up our sleeves and you can’t do both at the same time.”
After talking about hope, she took a veiled swipe at Obama. “You can’t just get people’s hopes up; you have to deliver results,” she said. Also of note: Clinton made reference to her husband's eight years and again referred to the period as "the first Clinton Administration."
Hillary Clinton continued to go after Obama yesterday, criticizing him for not mandating adults to get insurance under his plan for universal healthcare, the Chicago Sun-Times says. Clinton said that Obama is “trying to have it both ways. He is for a mandate, he is against a mandate. He is for universal coverage, he is against universal coverage. It is frustrating to people who care deeply about this issue because we have a chance to finally do this.”
On the Barbra Streisand endorsement: “‘If this were 1977 as opposed to 2007, then we might have a battle of the divas here. But this is like trotting out David Soul,’ scoffed Syracuse University culture Prof. Robert Thompson” in the New York Daily News. And be sure to check out the Daily News’ Tale of the Tape graphic comparing Babs and Oprah.
The Boston Globe notes: “But earlier this year, Streisand appeared to be hedging her bets. Within a month of giving Clinton the maximum $2,300 contribution on Feb. 14, she also gave the same amount to Obama and John Edwards, according to Federal Election Commission records.”
A new poll of African Americans from the Joint Center and AARP shows that Clinton gets slightly better ratings than Obama, although both are well thought of. The poll finds that Clinton was rated favorably by 83% of respondents, while 10% perceived her negatively. Obama, meanwhile, garnered favorable ratings from 74% of blacks, with 10% viewing him negatively.
Still, for Obama to trail Clinton in favorability among blacks will be something the Clinton camp will trumpet for some time. For some time, the Obama folks have asked people to hold off on assuming what happens with the black vote until after he wins an early state -- then, they believe, those numbers will begin to shift in their direction.
EDWARDS: The New York Times looks at the style change in Edwards from 2003-4 to now -- but with a twist. "This shift in style is, in some ways, more consistent with Mr. Edwards’s résumé as a ferocious and successful trial lawyer, but it raises the question of which is closer to his true self, the candidate of 2003 or of 2007? Mr. Edwards insists he has not fundamentally changed, but the experience of the last campaign, the return of his wife Elizabeth’s incurable cancer, and his intense preparation for this campaign have undoubtedly had an effect."
OBAMA: Last night on NBC Nightly News, Andrea Mitchell looked Bill versus Oprah in the context of the Clinton-Obama battle for women. “In Iowa, where Clinton and Obama are dead even, their celebrity surrogates are super weapons. Targeting a key audience -- women -- who are now as much as two-thirds of Democratic caucusgoers. ‘I think what Oprah Winfrey does is she brings out new women,’ the Des Moines Register’s David Yepsen said. ‘She is a great salesperson, and she could convince these women to take a look at Barack Obama.’"
Concord Monitor: “In a three-hour forum on foreign policy, Obama and his top foreign policy advisers stressed diplomacy and economics, rather than military reliance, and criticized the Republican party for doing otherwise.”
The Union-Leader: “Democrat Barack Obama, confronting claims that he's light on foreign policy, surrounded himself yesterday with heavyweights who said his differences with rival Hillary Rodham Clinton and others are just what the country needs.”
The Washington Post Style section profiles Michelle Obama.
The Washington Post's Beinart wonders if the country's short-attention span regarding Clinton and Obama and their original Iraq war stances ends up benefiting Clinton.
We've been pessimistic that the hit on Obama regarding campaign finance was going to stick, but this revelation strikes us as one that could end up in some contrast ads. Obama apparently did raise PAC money in 2005 and 2006 -- and deposited the PAC money in his own PAC. This smacks of playing the Washington game, no?
RICHARDSON: “Richardson, standing at a podium inside a farm building in front of hay bales with a Ford tractor and rows of dried cornstalks behind him, vowed to provide stronger enforcement of antitrust laws to protect family farmers.”
