Barack Obama’s campaign on Monday rejected Hillary Clinton’s assertion that she opposed the Iraq war before Obama, saying Clinton’s claim defies the historical record.
An Obama campaign spokesman told FOX News that when the Illinois senator spoke out against the war at a February 2005 town hall meeting, Clinton opposed the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and said that parts of the country were “functioning quite well.”
At a campaign stop in Oregon on Saturday, Clinton defended her record on the Iraq war and said she spoke out against the U.S.-led invasion before Barack Obama did.
Responding to a question about her 2002 vote to authorize the military force, Clinton told an audience at South Eugene High School in Eugene, Ore.: “I made a considered judgment. I didn’t make a speech, I made a decision.”
“When Senator Obama came to the Senate, he and I have voted exactly the same except for one vote,” Clinton said. “And that happens to be the facts. We both voted against early deadlines. I actually starting criticizing the war in Iraq before he did,” she said.
The Clinton campaign has since defended the former first lady’s statement, saying that Clinton was referring to a time period beginning in January 2005 — after Obama had joined the Senate. In that context, her advisers say, Clinton is correct.
To support Clinton’s statement, her campaign pointed to a Jan. 26, 2005, paper statement, in which the New York senator wrote:
“The administration and Defense Department’s Iraq policy has been, by any reasonable measure, riddled with errors, misstatements and misjudgments. From the beginning of the Iraqi war, we were inadequately prepared for the aftermath of the invasion with too few troops and an inadequate plan to stabilize Iraq.”
Clinton’s remark on Saturday was not the first time the New York Senator criticized Obama’s record on the the Iraq War. In a Jan. 13, 2008, appearance on Meet the Press, Clinton said Obama’s campaign has been “premised on a speech he gave in 2002,” which she added “was to his credit.”
“He gave a speech opposing the war in Iraq. He gave a very impassioned speech against it and consistently said that he was against the war, he would vote against the funding for the war. By 2003, that speech was off his Web site. By 2004, he was saying that he didn’t really disagree with the way George Bush was conducting the war. And by 2005, ‘6 and ‘7, he was voting for $300 billion in funding for the war. The story of his campaign is really the story of that speech and his opposition to Iraq. I think it is fair to ask questions about, ‘Well, what did you do after the speech was over?’ And when he became a senator, he didn’t go to the floor of the Senate to condemn the war in Iraq for 18 months. He didn’t introduce legislation against the war in Iraq. He voted against timelines and deadlines initially,” Clinton said.
But opponents say Clinton’s claim that she criticized the war before Obama is inconsistent with the facts.
They say Obama — who has focused his presidential campaign largely on his record of staunch opposition to the war — voiced criticism of the U.S.-led invasion during his first meeting as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Jan. 18, 2005.
“I am concerned about this notion that was pursued by Senator (Joe) Biden and others that we’ve made significant progress in training troops because it seems to me that in your response to Senator (Lamar) Alexander that we will not be able to get our troops out absent the Iraqi forces being able to secure their own country, or at least this administration would not be willing to define success in the absence of such security,” Obama told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Obama supporters add that Clinton reportedly said at that time, “I don’t think it’s useful to set a deadline because I think it sends a signal to the terrorists and the insurgents that they just have to wait us out.”
But opponents say Clinton’s claim that she criticized the war before Obama is inconsistent with the facts.
This is not an ambiguous issue. He gave a speech in 2002; she started opposing the war in 2005. Why in the hell is this prefaced with the mealy-mouthed qualifier "opponents say"?
...oh, it's just Fox Noise. Carry on.
Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things... their number is negligible and they are stupid. --Dwight D. Eisenhower
Google news has a few other versions of the story...apparently Clinton is saying that, once Obama entered the senate, she criticised the war before him. It makes no sense to begin with, but if we give Clinton her insanity and take her statement as said and the evidence they gave to back it up, it's still wrong. Obama criticised the war in a televised hearing with Condi Rice 8 days before the day Clinton is claiming her criticism started...
I should have also made the title of this thread "criticised" instead of "opposed" since that's actually what she said.
Say NO to circumcisionIT'S A BOY! This is a great link to show expecting parents.
My parent's local paper had a laughable politcal cartoon this morning where the media was portrayed as playing hard ball with Clinton and McCain while putting the kid gloves on with Obama. The media should be crying bloody murder over all the blatent lies of Clinton, but they're not. She goes onto Leno and jokes about how she was late because she got held up by sniper fire.
Cairber wrote:Google news has a few other versions of the story...apparently Clinton is saying that, once Obama entered the senate, she criticised the war before him. It makes no sense to begin with, but if we give Clinton her insanity and take her statement as said and the evidence they gave to back it up, it's still wrong. Obama criticised the war in a televised hearing with Condi Rice 8 days before the day Clinton is claiming her criticism started...
Yeah, just two weeks after he became a Senator, it looks like. He certainly didn't waste any time. Clinton seems to be saying that he assumed his office as a Senator and immediately shut up about Iraq, which is... a total lie. It must be Monday.
Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things... their number is negligible and they are stupid. --Dwight D. Eisenhower
Spin Echo wrote:My parent's local paper had a laughable politcal cartoon this morning where the media was portrayed as playing hard ball with Clinton and McCain while putting the kid gloves on with Obama. The media should be crying bloody murder over all the blatent lies of Clinton, but they're not. She goes onto Leno and jokes about how she was late because she got held up by sniper fire.
Yeah, you're right. The media should be all over the numerous lies Clinton has been caught in, this one being the latest.
“There are two kinds of people in the world: the kind who think it’s perfectly reasonable to strip-search a 13-year-old girl suspected of bringing ibuprofen to school, and the kind who think those people should be kept as far away from children as possible … Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between drug warriors and child molesters.” - Jacob Sullum[/size][/align]
This is not an ambiguous issue. He gave a speech in 2002; she started opposing the war in 2005. Why in the hell is this prefaced with the mealy-mouthed qualifier "opponents say"?
...oh, it's just Fox Noise. Carry on.
No, that's standard practice of America's so-called journalists. They have long abandoned the practice of actually calling a lie for what it is themselves, and instead leave it to the opposition to say it's a lie, and then quote the opposition.
This has the obvious effect of granting undue legitimacy to embarassingly bald-faced lies - after all, it's not unbelievably, objectively false with reference to easily available facts and evidence - the opponent simply says it is.
That's the chickenshit "cover your ass" strategy, taken from bureaucracies. The only people who don't do it, sadly, are the Republitard drones at FOXNews, who will come right out and make bold assertions or outright shut down opposition claims with no disclaimers (even if they must lie themselves in order to do so).
Not to sound too much like Patrick Degan, but there's some real truth to the notion that the biggest problem in American politics right now is that the conservatives seem to have all the balls.
"It's not evil for God to do it. Or for someone to do it at God's command."- Jonathan Boyd on baby-killing
"you guys are fascinated with the use of those "rules of logic" to the extent that you don't really want to discussus anything."- GC
"I do not believe Russian Roulette is a stupid act" - Embracer of Darkness
"Viagra commercials appear to save lives" - tharkûn on US health care.
She has to do something now that she's lost her 'Kingmaker'.
Nitram, slightly high on cough syrup: Do you know you're beautiful?
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
