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Barack Obama takes aim at John McCain on Iraq
Reuters ^ | Mar 31, 2008 | Caren Bohan

Posted on 03/31/2008 7:06:51 PM PDT by mdittmar

MANHEIM, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - Democrat Barack Obama took aim on Monday at potential White House opponent John McCain on Iraq, saying the Republican senator could not offer a clear definition of success in the conflict and might leave ,U.S. combat troops there for decades.

Obama looked past Democratic rival Hillary Clinton before their showdown in Pennsylvania on April 22 and trained his fire on McCain, who has clinched the Republican nomination and will face the Democratic winner in November's election.

Obama accused McCain of "clinging to the policies of the past." He said the Arizona senator shared a vision of Iraq with President George W. Bush and had not spelled out how the United States would be able to end its military involvement there.

"The problem that we've had, both with John McCain and George Bush, is there's no clear definition of success. There never was. And that's why this has been such a profound strategic error," Obama, an Illinois senator, told reporters while campaigning in Pennsylvania.

"For him to argue that -- which he has repeatedly -- that any suggestion that we withdraw troops is surrender, that implies that, you know, we will be there as long as he thinks it's necessary for us to be there," he said.

Obama and Clinton were both on the campaign trail in Pennsylvania, site of the next contest in their hard-fought battle. Both accused McCain of lacking a clear plan to end turmoil in America's housing market.

(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; News/Current Events; Political Humor/Cartoons; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2008; cicobama; iraq; issues; mccain; obama; pa2008
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I thought the economy was the top issue;)
1 posted on 03/31/2008 7:06:53 PM PDT by mdittmar
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To: mdittmar

What do these “Dims” propose in Iraq? if we pull out within the first year of one of their presidency, what do we do when Iran and the radical mulim element fill the void and crate an expanded Theocracy in the middle east and then begin to take Saudi, Qatar and the UAE?

I wonder what we do then....


2 posted on 03/31/2008 7:13:00 PM PDT by Shirerwasright (Liberalism continues to erode the foundations of America)
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Comment #3 Removed by Moderator

To: mdittmar
"clinging to the policies of the past"

...says the candidate with the policies of Lenin circa 1918.

4 posted on 03/31/2008 7:17:49 PM PDT by denydenydeny (Expel the priest and you don't inaugurate the age of reason, you get the witch doctor--Paul Johnson)
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To: mdittmar

Obama is losing to McCain according to the latest polls in PA. This is why he is taking aim at McCain.


5 posted on 03/31/2008 7:21:33 PM PDT by Kleebo151
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To: Shirerwasright

All the talk is meaningless.

I am betting that Obama won’t pull us out of Iraq.

Just like the Dems’ promise before the last election. And look how far they got.


6 posted on 03/31/2008 7:23:10 PM PDT by dhs12345
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To: mdittmar
Why in the hell is a 1 term wonder with no discernible foreign policy experience being treated as if he knows what the hell he is talking about?
7 posted on 03/31/2008 7:23:11 PM PDT by Volunteer (Just so you know, I am ashamed the Dixie Chicks make records in Nashville.)
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To: mdittmar

Barry has another “crazy uncle” in his closet. Barry encourages negotiations and “peaceful resolutions” with Islamic separatists. Barry is very fond of Marxists. Barry is not taking interviews.


8 posted on 03/31/2008 7:26:00 PM PDT by GVnana ("They're still analyzing the first guy. What do I have to worry about?" - GWB)
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To: mdittmar
Democrat Barack Obama took aim on Monday at potential White House opponent John McCain on Iraq, saying the Republican senator could not offer a clear definition of success in the conflict and might leave ,U.S. combat troops there for decades.

This is good, I hope Barack Hussein Obama keeps taking aim at McCain.

BTW Caran, you'll get a demote calling BHO a Democrat. You are supposed to call him Democratic blah, blah....

9 posted on 03/31/2008 7:26:37 PM PDT by BARLF
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To: Volunteer

Come on... Obama is the wet dream candidate of the “white guilt party”. This guys makes all the estrogen soaked girlie men “feel” good about themselves so they can prove out enlightened they are by voting for a black man.

By professing their faith in Obama they clearly proving they are not racists.

Chrissy’s leg is twitching now!


10 posted on 03/31/2008 7:26:56 PM PDT by Shirerwasright (Liberalism continues to erode the foundations of America)
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To: Volunteer

Political correctness does strange things to people.


11 posted on 03/31/2008 7:28:08 PM PDT by johnthebaptistmoore (Vote for conservatives AT ALL POLITICAL LEVELS! Encourage all others to do the same on November 4!)
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To: mdittmar

Well, we’ve had troops in Germany for 60+ tears now. And in Korea for almost that long. Maybe Hussein should yack about what a bad President Truman was too.


12 posted on 03/31/2008 7:28:36 PM PDT by Seruzawa (A skeleton walks into a bar and asks for a beer and a mop.)
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To: mdittmar

I could be wrong but I’m becoming more and more convinced that Obama will play the role of George McGovern and McCain will be Dick Nixon, in a replay of the 1972 election. How sweet it was.


13 posted on 03/31/2008 7:34:03 PM PDT by Signalman
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To: Shirerwasright

Obama is the last guy on earth who needs to be criticizing anyone about a lack of definition. The guy bambles on for hours and doesn’t say a damn thing. He’s the most shallow politician I’ve seen in ages.

Just for once, I’d like to hear someone call him out on it.


14 posted on 03/31/2008 7:45:54 PM PDT by CaspersGh0sts
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To: mdittmar

DNC Chairman Addresses Presidential Experience Factor

In the midst of sagging public confidence in both of the Party’s presidential contenders, Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Howard Dean took up the issue of experience. “People are saying that Senator McCain’s wartime experience makes him a better fit as the nation’s Commander-in-Chief,” Dean said. “But let’s look at the record.”

“It’s true McCain fought in Vietnam, but what did he accomplish?” Dean asked. “He crashed his plane and was captured. He spent six years languishing in the ‘Hanoi Hilton.’ And we lost the war. That’s not much of an achievement.”

“While McCain was failing in Vietnam Hillary Clinton was getting a law degree from Yale—one of the nation’s premier universities,” Dean boasted. “She was improving herself to better serve America in the years to come at the same time McCain was undergoing the sensory deprivation, physical torture, and mental duress that made him the angry and bitter man he is today.”

“Meanwhile, even though he was just a youngster, Barack Obama was studying Islam as a student in Indonesia—gaining insights that would prepare him for the issues that confront America in the 21st century,” Dean said. “In contrast, any insights McCain may have gained as a prisoner of the Communists is now largely obsolete, what with the fall of the Soviet Union and China’s evolution toward a market economy.”

Dean emphasized that this particular comparison of just a few overlapping years “is just a tip of the ice berg. A full examination of the lives of the candidates will show voters that it is the Democrats that have the kind of experience needed to lead this country to a new destiny.”

read more...

http://www.azconservative.org/Semmens1.htm


15 posted on 03/31/2008 7:46:36 PM PDT by John Semmens
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To: dhs12345
I am betting that Obama won’t pull us out of Iraq.

Respectfully, I do not agree.

If Obama were president, I suspect that he would fulfill his promises and make U.S. surrender in Iraq among his first priorities.

The fact that the U.S. would sustain heavy casualties in retreat, that Iraq would fall into the hands of Iran, and that the terror attacks would start again here means little to ideologues like Obama.

As E. Fudd might say, this is vewwy skewwy.

16 posted on 03/31/2008 8:28:56 PM PDT by Seaplaner (Never give in. Never give in. Never...except to convictions of honour and good sense. W. Churchill)
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To: Volunteer
Why in the hell is a 1 term wonder with no discernible foreign policy experience being treated as if he knows what the hell he is talking about?

I dunno, maybe it's his vast military experience/s

17 posted on 03/31/2008 8:57:09 PM PDT by Marathoner (Don't blame me, I voted for Duncan Hunter.)
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To: mdittmar
Obama accused McCain of "clinging to the policies of the past."

This guy is a dufus

18 posted on 03/31/2008 8:58:11 PM PDT by mylife (The Roar Of The Masses Could Be Farts)
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To: dhs12345
I am betting that Obama won’t pull us out of Iraq.

If it were any other Democrat, I would agree with you....but not with this guy. I think he's serious. The more I learn about Obama, the man......the more I question his loyalties.

Party rivalries aside, there's something very disturbing about this man. Someone who lies as effortlessly as he does, sends a chill up my spine. I thought I'd seen the best with regard to Bill Clinton, but this guy makes even Clinton irrelevant.

That's scary

19 posted on 03/31/2008 9:49:31 PM PDT by csense
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To: csense
Well noted. Your intuition is on the mark.

We all have DNA survival chromosomes in us - some people have more, some less. Some not enough for survival...

I looked upon Obama as rather benign - until I heard his 40-minute rhythmic rant to a mesmerized audience in Austin, TX, the night of his big Wisconsin win.

I realized then that Obama is a serious radical who is imbued with a grandiose vision of himself as sort of an emperor.

I lived through the 60’s when Fidel Castro came to power pretending skillfully to be a democratic reformer - even fooling, and eventually murdering, many of his own comrades-in-arms (those who were democratic socialists).

I detected a whiff of the Castro persona in Obama the night of the Wisconsin victory.

Obama is no Castro. But there is a radicalism inside him, usually very well concealed, that he obviously has no trouble with - that would present a clear and present danger to this nation and its 300 million people with him as President.

It's not only what he would do - but just as much what he would not do.

For anyone to believe he would defend the nation when he has specifically declined to defend the repetitive and vicious slandering and cursing of it in his church is nothing but mental pathology.

20 posted on 03/31/2008 10:21:52 PM PDT by mtntop3
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