BigBadBrian
03-17-2007, 06:41 AM
Obama Disputes Bill Clinton’s Take on War Views
By Patrick Healy
March 16, 2007, 12:40 pm
Senator Barack Obama is pushing back against former President Bill Clinton this morning over Mr. Clinton’s apparent statement that Mr. Obama was initially ambivalent about the Iraq war.
According to an item in the gossip column Page 6 in today’s New York Post, Mr. Clinton said at a private fund-raiser Tuesday that Mr. Obama was asked in 2004 how he would have voted on the Iraq war resolution of 2002, had he been in the Senate at the time. According to people who attended the fundraiser, Mr. Clinton was said to have quoted Mr. Obama as saying, “I’m not sure,” and then criticized The New York Times for not highlighting that position as ambivalence over the war.
In a statement volunteered by the Obama campaign this morning, Senator Obama said:
“In 2002, I opposed giving President Bush the authority to invade Iraq, and said that a war based not on principle but on politics would lead to a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I wish those words had never come true, but I have stood by them since that day and continue to today.”
Mr. Clinton’s wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is running against Mr. Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination, has been criticized on the left and heavily scrutinized by the media for voting in favor of the Iraq resolution in 2002 and refusing to apologize for that vote.
A spokesman for Mr. Clinton was not immediately available for comment.
Link (http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/03/16/obama-disputes-bill-clintons-take-on-war-views/)
By Patrick Healy
March 16, 2007, 12:40 pm
Senator Barack Obama is pushing back against former President Bill Clinton this morning over Mr. Clinton’s apparent statement that Mr. Obama was initially ambivalent about the Iraq war.
According to an item in the gossip column Page 6 in today’s New York Post, Mr. Clinton said at a private fund-raiser Tuesday that Mr. Obama was asked in 2004 how he would have voted on the Iraq war resolution of 2002, had he been in the Senate at the time. According to people who attended the fundraiser, Mr. Clinton was said to have quoted Mr. Obama as saying, “I’m not sure,” and then criticized The New York Times for not highlighting that position as ambivalence over the war.
In a statement volunteered by the Obama campaign this morning, Senator Obama said:
“In 2002, I opposed giving President Bush the authority to invade Iraq, and said that a war based not on principle but on politics would lead to a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I wish those words had never come true, but I have stood by them since that day and continue to today.”
Mr. Clinton’s wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is running against Mr. Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination, has been criticized on the left and heavily scrutinized by the media for voting in favor of the Iraq resolution in 2002 and refusing to apologize for that vote.
A spokesman for Mr. Clinton was not immediately available for comment.
Link (http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/03/16/obama-disputes-bill-clintons-take-on-war-views/)