In case anyone thought Obama was going to slnk away from the browbeating Hillary tried to give him, the answer is in.
This is going to be a slugfest.
And it's about damn time, too.
Obama ties her to the Washington Elites, the status, quo, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and her Iraq war vote.
The fusillade examined below the fold.
MSNBC characterizes his newest statements in an interview as "political defcon three."
Obama jabs her on her Iraq vote, using her own words against her:
"I think what is irresponsible and naive is to have authorized a war without asking how we were going to get out -- and you know I think Senator Clinton hasn’t fully answered that issue.
He assails her on the issue of diplomacy, while not missing a chance to pander to Israel:
"The general principle that I was laying out is that we should not be afraid as America to meet with anybody.
"Now, they may not like what we want to hear -- so if I’m talking to the President of Iran, I’m going to inform him that Israel is our stalwart ally, and we are going to do what's necessary to protect them -- that we will not accept a nuclear bomb in Iran, but that doesn’t mean we can’t say that face to face. And obviously, the diplomatic state work has to be done ahead of time.
He uses the 'without precondition' language she tried to exploit to tie her to Bush/Cheney:
"But the general principle is one that I think Senator Clinton is wrong on -- and that is if we are laying out preconditions that prevents us from speaking frankly to these folks, then we are continuing with Bush-Cheney policies, and I am not interested in continuing that.
"I know that she has said in the past that we have to talk to our enemies -- well that’s what this is about. And if we say that we will not talk to them unless they meet a series of preconditions, then that’s the same position that Bush and Cheney have maintained over the last six years, and it has made us less safe. And that’s what I think is going to be a significant part of this debate in 2008.
And he brings it full circle in one stroke, tying her to the Washington Elites, the status quo, and the Iraq war:
That ultimately is what’s going to create the environment in which we can reduce some of the threat levels we are facing. To fail to do that is the same conventional Washington thinking that led many including Senator Clinton to go ahead with the war without having asked adequate questions."
Analysis:
This is going to be a change election. Hillary is trying to position herself as an agent of change to head off more plausible agents of change than a former First Lady and consummate insider.
Obama here is trying to destroy her credibility as an agent of change--tying her to the status quo, Washington DC, and the Bush/Cheney way of doing things. In other words, the subtext reads, if you want to change things, Hillary isn't the person for the job.
UPDATE: Steve Rothman (D-NJ) watched that debate question and decided as a result to endorse Obama.
Clinton called rival Sen. Barack Obama’s willingness to sit down with government leaders who are enemies of the United States "irresponsible and naive."
But U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman disagrees. In fact, the New Jersey Congressman said when he watched that debate he finally decided he was going to support Obama for president, and today he fired off a press release enthusiastically endorsing Obama ‘08.
"Barack’s appearance in the last debate confirmed for me what I’ve believed all along," said Rothman. "It’s new thinking versus old thinking. This notion of Hillary Clinton’s that we should continue down this path of not talking to our enemies is a policy that has proven to be disastrous to our country. These are not the views of someone who professes to be an agent of change."