Obama: "I have enough experience to know that if you have a national intelligence estimate...... [View All]

[TeamJordan23]

then you should probably read it.”

Obama: Clinton should have read more in 2002
by John McCormick

WESTERVILLE, Ohio – Responding to comments made by Hillary Clinton earlier today in the same town, Barack Obama had his shots ready when he arrived at a high school gymnasium for a Sunday afternoon event.

"Sen. Clinton continues to insist that we provide speeches and she provides solutions," he said. "The press has sort of bought into this, I think, because they, you know, want to keep the contest interesting, and I understand that."

But Obama said he has provided specifics on "every issue under the sun" and that her claims of foreign-policy experience are overblown.

"She has, supposedly, all this vast foreign policy experience," he said. "I have to say, when it came to making the most important foreign policy decision of our generation -- the decision to invade Iraq -- Sen. Clinton got it wrong. She didn't read the nation intelligence estimates…I have enough experience to know that if you have a national intelligence estimate, and the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee says you should read this -- this is why I'm voting against the war -- then you should probably read it."

Obama called on Clinton to offer more specifics of her own as he spoke to what his campaign said was an audience of more than 3,000 inside and outside the school.

"We're still waiting to hear Sen. Clinton tell us what precise foreign policy experience that she is claiming that makes her prepared to answer that phone call at three in the morning," he said.

Candice Swords, a stay-at-home mother from Westerville, went to both the Clinton and Obama events. She described herself as a "life-long Clinton supporter," who even named her 9-year-old daughter Chelsea, after the former first daughter.

But, she said, she plans to vote for Obama.

"Hillary is tied to lobbyists and when you take money from lobbyists, you owe them," she said. "He's fresh. He's new. He's change."

The schools where the two candidates appeared reflected the demographic aspects of their appeals. Obama was at the relatively new Westerville Central High School, while Clinton was at the older Westerville North High School.

As much as she likes Clinton, Swords said she believes Obama has a better chance fixing the nation's ills. "The experience part of her is nice, but I prefer the change Obama could offer," she said.

http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/03/by_john_mccormick_westerville.html