Maybe Hillary Clinton has a point about Obama's speeches filled with rhetoric, but she has come out swinging too late. Her campaign officials have accused rival Barack Obama of making an error during a speech in Westerville, Ohio, in which he described the Iraq war vote cast by Senator Jay Rockefeller, who has endorsed him. You see, Obama criticized Clinton, and rightly so, for failing to read the classified National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's weapons capabilities, which media reports have said was available to her at the time of her October 2002 vote authorizing the war.
He said that Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a fellow Democrat from neighboring West Virginia, had read the intelligence estimate as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and after a brief pause said the then-chairman had voted against the war resolution. Helloo people, Rockefeller was not the chair at the time and had voted in favor of the war authorization. It was Sen. Bob Graham of Florida who was the intelligence committee chair in 2002 and had, in fact, voted again the resolution. Obama did not mention his name in his speech. Ouch!
“She didn’t read the National Intelligence Estimates. Jay Rockefeller read it. But she didn’t read it. (And after a 13-second pause) I don’t know what all that experience got her because I have enough experience to know that if you have a National Intelligence Estimate and the chairman of the national…umm…Senate Intelligence Committee says you should read this, this is why I’m voting against the war, that you should probably read it. I don’t know how much experience you need for that.”
For once I agree with the Clinton campaign that Obama's national security experience is limited and that he, in essence, misled voters about his own supporters. There is also a flip side to this notion, because Hillary Clinton does not have the national security experience she brags about. Actually, neither did President Bush and look where it got us--in an unending war in Iraq, a country mired in debt, fallout from the subprime mortgage, a virtual collapse of the credit markets, higher gas prices, higher prices for a barrel of oil, a greenback that is worth less than the Euro and I could go on and on.... So, I don't know whether, at this point, either candidate can aver with confidence that they are experts at national policy.
There is another issue that Obama has said that sheds light on his limited grasp of foreign policy issues--the notion of meeting with our enemies. While he may have been misunderstood, but he said it. I dare him to meet with the Castro regime without the proper conditions in place and to make that an issue in his campaign. That will be a sure ticket for a stinging loss in Florida in November.
While I don't condone the fact that Mrs. Clinton did not read the report, I can completely understand why she voted for the war. After dealing with September 11th, I am pretty sure that would have changed anyone's mind. Maybe that is not a sound reason, but it is completely plausible. Had Hillary Clinton released that 3 a.m. telephone call advertisement earlier, she would have made some headway into calling attention to Obama's experience or lack thereof.
