Hoping to regain some momentum from perhaps her strongest political asset, her perceived experience, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., delivered a foreign policy speech in Washington, D.C., this afternoon that assailed rival Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., as unwise, inexperienced, impulsive and indecisive — in short, a risk to the nation.
Clinton said that Obama “wavers from seeming to believe that mediation and meetings without preconditions can solve some of the world’s most intractable problems to advocating rash unilateral military action without cooperation among allies in the most sensitive region of the world.”
With a half-dozen retired generals standing behind her, Clinton said she was the only candidate who could restore a U.S. foreign policy that had the right combination of diplomacy and military might.
A sign on the podium proclaimed her election “Strengthening America.”
Clinton Links Obama & Bush Experience
To a packed auditorium at George Washington University, Clinton seemed to imply Obama’s lack of foreign policy credentials might mean he’d be a Democratic version of President Bush.
“We’ve seen the tragic result of having a president who had neither the experience nor the wisdom to manage our foreign policy and safeguard our national security,” she said. “We can’t let that happen again.”
Clinton also mocked Obama by implication suggesting he would need a manual to understand the complexities of foreign diplomacy.
“The American people don’t have to guess whether I understand the issues or whether I would need a foreign policy instruction manual to guide me through a crisis, or whether I’d have to rely on advisers to introduce me to global affairs,” she said.
Mocking Obama
She directly criticized two facets of Obama’s foreign policy proposals from the last year.
On Obama’s suggestion he would meet with the leaders of nations hostile to the United States, she said, “We simply cannot legitimize rogue regimes or weaken American prestige by impulsively agreeing to presidential level talks that have no preconditions. It may sound good … but it doesn’t meet the real world test of foreign policy.”
She also went after Obama as a reckless poseur for a speech he made last year where he said that with actionable intelligence he would be willing to send U.S. troops into Pakistan to take out high-level al Qaeda targets, with or without permission of the government of Pakistan.
“One thing the American people can be sure of,” she said, “I will not broadcast threats of unilateral military action against a country like Pakistan just to demonstrate that I’m tough enough for the job. We have to change our tone and change our course.”
With eight days until the critical March 4 primaries in Texas and Ohio, Clinton’s tone today was measured and somber, even presidential — a contrast to the inconsistent tones marking her campaign appearances as of late.
At a debate Thursday she was effusive and warm toward Obama.
On Saturday, upset about two misleading Obama mailers she said, “Shame on you, Barack Obama!” On Sunday in Rhode Island she mocked Obama’s lofty rhetoric with dismissive sarcasm.
After being criticized this morning as “divisive” by the Obama campaign for allegations that her staffers were circulating a photograph of Obama dressed in African garb during a trip to that continent in 2006, Clinton announced plans to meet this afternoon with a convention of members of a predominantly black sorority in Washington, D.C.
Obama addressed the photo in an interview with ABC News radio affiliate WBAP Fort Worth/Dallas saying it was “silliness”. “The notion that they would try to use this to imply in some way that I’m foreign, I think is, you know, unfortunate,” Obama said. “These are the kinds of political tricks and silliness you start seeing at the end of campaigns.”
Clinton will head to Ohio, Tuesday morning.
Arlette Saenz and Steve Portnoy contributed to this report.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=4340399&page=1
____________________________________________________________________
The Obama Africa Photo
February 25, 2008 11:39 AM
<!–
–>This morning a photograph of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., dressed as a Somali Elder during a 2006 trip to Africa was posted on the Drudge Report.
Drudge claimed “stressed Clinton staffers” were circulating the photograph over the weekend, one of them writing, “Wouldn’t we be seeing this on the cover of every magazine if it were HRC?”
The Clinton campaign has yet to issue an official denial that its staffers had sent the email or circulated the photograph and the Obama campaign — believing the Clinton team is trying to feed into the internet rumor that Obama is some sort of Muslim Manchurian candidate — expressed outrage.
Said Obama campaign manager David Plouffe in a statement, “On the very day that Senator Clinton is giving a speech about restoring respect for America in the world, her campaign has engaged in the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering we’ve seen from either party in this election. This is part of a disturbing pattern that led her county chairs to resign in Iowa, her campaign chairman to resign in New Hampshire, and it’s exactly the kind of divisive politics that turns away Americans of all parties and diminishes respect for America in the world.”
The photo of Obama in native garb during a visit to Wajir had largely been posted in two places prior to today — on African websites such as this one, and on conservative websites where posters ludicrously claim Obama, a Christian American, is some sort of covertly Muslim operative.
Clinton campaign manager Maggie Williams, who is African-American, responded forcefully, saying: “Enough. If Barack Obama’s campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him wearing traditional Somali clothing is divisive, they should be ashamed. Hillary Clinton has worn the traditional clothing of countries she has visited and had those photos published widely.
“This is nothing more than an obvious and transparent attempt to distract from the serious issues confronting our country today and to attempt to create the very divisions they claim to decry,” Williams went on. “We will not be distracted.”
The Obama campaign publicized his August 2006 trip to Africa and even permitted a documentary film crew to come along for 2007’s “Senator Obama Goes to Africa.”
— jpt
February 25, 2008 in Weblogs |
Jake Tapper is ABC News’ Senior National Correspondent based in the network’s Washington bureau. He writes about politics and popular culture and covers a range of national stories.
Ann
BEAUTIFUL, ALSO, ARE THE SOULS OF MY BLACK SISTERS 
I thought the photo that the Clinton campaign spread about Obama was tacky. Obama is wearing traditional clothing that some men wear in Kenya. The Clintons are consistently trying to link Obama to terrorism. And Hillary Clinton’s pathetic claims that she didn’t know what was going on is BS. It seems to me the Clintons are playing dirty politics and will do anything to win the democratic party nomination.
Americans have been through enough mud-slinging filth where politics are concerned.
Clinton—-she stoops to conquer.
Obama has been taking the high road in much of his responses.
Millions of Americans will remember the positive and mature approach of a candidate, as well as that candidate’s stance on issues that affect all Americans, just as millions of Americans will remember the nasty, petty behaviour of candidates who grasp at straws, any straw, to try and bamboozle the minds of voters.
Many citizens of America are tired of hateful politics. They want change, and just as change can be painful for some citizens, so too can it be just as painful for some political candidates.