Obama again takes heat over Pakistan comment

Barack Obama, the new kid on the block, received another scolding tonight from his elders in the Democratic presidential race over his willingness to publicly discuss specific actions he might take to fight terrorism. And as the dispute played out at a candidate debate in Chicago, it's increasingly evident that this looms as a potentially defining issue for the first-term senator from Illinois--it could stick him with an "inexperienced" label that will be hard to shake, or serve his purposes of offering himself as a clear-cut, fresh alternative.

The matter at hand was Obama's assertion last week that if intelligence information merited it, he would have the U.S. "act" against terrorists in Pakistan if that country's leader failed to do so. Several of his rivals, as they have previously, wanted to focus on the appropriateness of Obama even broaching the topic.

Hillary Clinton summed up the basic criticism that she, Chris Dodd and Joe Biden have been directing at Obama. "I do not believe that people running for president should engage in hypotheticals," she said. "You should not always say everything you think if you're running for president, because it can have consequences across the world."

Dodd chimed in, saying, "It was a mistake in my view to suggest somehow that going in unilaterally ... into Pakistan, was somehow in our interest. That, I think, is dangerous."

Obama initially fumbled his response, saying, "I did not say that we would immediately go in
unilaterally" (it's hard not to interpret what he said last week as anything other than exactly that). But then he came up with a crowd pleaser in responding to Clinton's call for discretion, saying, "We're debating the most important foreign policy issues that we face, and the American people have the right to know."

The line won him...   

...a burst of applause from the forum's large union crowd (the debate was sponsored by the AFL-CIO).

Obama also had been ready a few minutes earlier, when the Pakistan matter first came up. He provided a sound bite that in one fell swoop reminded astute listeners that Clinton, Dodd, Biden and another of the presidential contenders, John Edwards, all voted as U.S. senators in 2002 to authorize the Iraq war (Obama, a state lawmaker in Illinois at the time, had criticized the push to attack the country).

“I find it amusing," Obama said, "that those who voted to authorize and engineer the biggest foreign policy disaster in our generation are now criticizing me.”

We must confess that we found it amusing later in the debate when Obama, in parrying a truly trick--and irrelevant--question from sports-reporter-turned-news-commentator Keith Olbermann, decided to take Clinton's advice about not always tipping his hand.

Olbermann asked if Obama, as president, would honor Barry Bonds with a White House ceremony recognizing the home run record the slugger is on the cusp of setting. Some in the crowd moaned; Obama noted that, going into the game in San Francisco tonight, Bonds "has still got to hit one more, and it has been taking a while."

Olbermann pressed, but Obama was not about to either embrace or reject the player whose pursuit of the record has been shadowed by steroid allegations. "He hasn't done it yet, so we will answer the question when it comes."

In this case, the deft non-response seemed called for.

[UPDATE: Obama barely dodged the issue. His response came just a couple of hours before Bonds broke the record with his 756th home run.]

Clinton also was a frequent target in the debate; a full report by The Times' Peter Nicholas can be found here on The Times website and in Wednesday's print editions. A video version is available here. And a Paul Brownfield review is available here in the Show Tracker blog.

-- Don Frederick

Comments

[pservelle]

Obama/Kucinich ticket...I know, I know...seems wierd...but, think about it. Mr. Cerebral balanced by Mr. Viseral. What a great team for the general election. Send Kucinich to the red states and Obama to the blue. The more I think about it, it goes from being wierd to being a natural. The campaign bus has scrawled across it,
O.K. America...it's time for a change.

[Dan]

She said .."I do not believe that people running for president should engage in hypotheticals,". "You should not always say everything you think if you're running for president, because it can have consequences across the world."

But what is hypothetical about what has been happening in the last 6 years? It sounds like more of the Bush -Cheney politics in a skirt

[Len]

Clinton claimed to be the one to beat the GOP, but she has a HUGE "independent voter gap" that will be hard to repair. Independent voters hate her. How will she win if she cannot hold the independent vote? No one has asked her that. Her negatives are too high. It will be a Kerry defeat repeat. Obama went to Elko, Nevada, which is not a liberal haven to say the least, and was cheered because of his target Al Qaeda stance. When Clinton jumps on that stance, the independent voters just have more reason to not like her. Clinton is our worst candidate if we want to win the White House.

Obama keeps getting great applause from his position against Al Qaeda. Even the Republicans are saying, like Romney, we can't bomb our allies. Huh? Is Al Qaeda our ally? Look even Bill Clinton trageted Al Qaeda inside Sudan and Afghanistan unilaterallly. So what is all the fuss about? It is just a smear campaign, and though the media is jumping on board, the voters who want to go after the terrorist think targeting Al Qaeda is great... which gets us back to the independent voters. Elko cheering Obama? Yes, Obama has got it figured out. Perhaps the media will figure this out too, eventually.

[Stephen Cassidy]

All Democrats should want a candidate that will bring change to Washington yet is experienced in domestic policy and foreign affairs and will carry Democrats nationwide to victory in House and Senate races along with retaking the White House. Only Bill Richardson offers Democrats all three qualities: change, experience and electability.

[JoeCHI]

Am I the only one who thinks it's absurd that Obama wants to kumbaya with Ahmadinejad and Jong-il, plus invade Pakistan, BUT, he remains cautious and non-commital with regards to having Barry Bonds to the White House?

[nick]

Much agreed...Obama/Kucinich for 08!!!

[Jay]

This is an old article

[Ted Benedict]

So I google Barack Obama news items, and I find this article, which supposedly appeared in the LA Times 1 hour ago. Rather tellingly, I find that it is rather old news that first appeared last AUGUST! Hmm, I thought Barry Bonds had already broken the homerun record?

(Yup. Talk to Google.)

[jack bigelow]

why is the l.a. times recycling this nearly 4 month old column?

(It isn't. Look at the date on it. Google is.)

[marty]

Looks like a Clinton camp method of negative campaigning. Find old negative (misleading) articles about Obama, put a new comment on them and it then brings it to the front page of the google news search.

Obama supporters, time to find old articles on Mr. Geffin's remarks to Maureen Dowd "all politicians lie, but the Clintons do it with such ease, it is troubling".

[Bassick]

Hmmmmm...strange!!!

Does Obama really have enough fire power and confidence to deal with the Clinton's media connections??? They (Clintons) are down with Google, Drudge, Yahoo, and damn near every major media outlet in the country.

I'm for Obama, but this is going to be very interesting to see if His/our grassroots campaign is gonna be able to deal with the many upcoming tricks like this old news article popping up again out of nowhere!!

I hope his game is up to par....and I hope he doesn't panic and change his gameplan too much. He's the frontrunner now (probably has been all along despite media polls). Team Obama must prevail!!

Obama '08

[Anonymous]

The ironic thing is how prescient we now know Obama's statements regarding Pakistan were. While at the time the senator made these statements, folks from both parties rushed to defend "ally" Musharaff, the Pakastani leader's dangerousness as a terrorist-enabling dictator has become all-the-more-clear in recent months. Like Senator Obama's 2002 position on Iraq, he was ahead of his time on this issue too.

[Mr. Unite Us]

Obama was right about Iraq, Iran Pakistan,

Well stated anoymous.

"The ironic thing is how prescient we now know Obama's statements regarding Pakistan were. While at the time the senator made these statements, folks from both parties rushed to defend "ally" Musharaff, the Pakastani leader's dangerousness as a terrorist-enabling dictator has become all-the-more-clear in recent months. Like Senator Obama's 2002 position on Iraq, he was ahead of his time on this issue too."

Posted by: Anonymous | December 03, 2007 at 06:19 AM

Prescient. That's one of those $10.00 words.

foreknowledge of events: a: divine omniscience b: human anticipation of the course of events : foresight

Go Obama