by Mike Dorning
Hillary Clinton assailed rival Barack Obama today on one of his core sources of strength in the Democratic presidential primary, his early opposition to the war in Iraq, questioning Obama’s consistency in opposing the war because he voted for war funding while in the U.S. Senate.
Her comments stirred a quick and spirited response from the Obama campaign, which organized a conference call this afternoon to counter the charges featuring home-state ally Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), also an early opponent of the war.
Clinton voted to authorize the Iraq War when a resolution to grant the president the power to invade came before the U.S. Senate in 2002. Obama, then a state senator running for the U.S. Senate, delivered a public speech at the time opposing the movement to war.
Obama frequently focuses on their early differences on the war in campaign speeches, regularly describing the Iraq War as one “that never should have been authorized and never should have been fought” and countering her argument that she has greater “experience” by questioning her “judgment” in supporting the war.
In an appearance on Meet the Press this morning, Clinton argued Obama’s claims he has been consistent in opposing the war was undermined his votes in favor of funding for the war effort. Obama, like Clinton, regularly voted to continue funding for troops in Iraq until last year. Clinton also noted that he waited more than 18 months after his 2004 election to the Senate to deliver a major speech against the war as a sitting senator.
Obama campaign quickly arranged a rebuttal from Durbin, who voted against the war authorization in 2002 but also has voted for troop funding, and Obama foreign policy adviser Susan Rice, a former assistant secretary of state in the Clinton Administration.”His position on the war in Iraq has never changed, never,” Durbin said. “Like a lot of us in the Senate,” Durbin added, Obama voted for funding that “provided material support for the troops in the field.”
“What he wasn’t willing to do is punish our troops for the President’s poor judgment in going to war,” Rice said.
In the Meet the Press interview, Clinton acknowledged Obama “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.
But, she added, “By 2003 that speech was off his website, by 2004 he was saying that he didn’t really disagree with the way George Bush was conducting the war and, by 2005, 2006, and 2007, 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?'” she continued “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, so I think it’s important that we get the contrasts and the comparisons out. I think that’s fair game.”
Durbin argued in the conference call that Clinton was simply trying to muddy a difference between Obama and her on his early assessment that the war was a mistake.
“What we’ve seen in previous campaign is you go after your opponent”s positions of strength,” Durbin said. “They’re clearly going after what I think has been one of Sen. Obama’s stronger positions.”
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