Obama is fighting for his political life right now....he needs to stir things up a bit..to survive against Hillary.........it is a shame things have to get so nasty and personal...........andy
Obama lashes out at Clinton
DES MOINES - Barack Obama's decision to launch a new tougher phase of his campaign with a withering foreign policy attack on Hillary Clinton opened the door Friday for the most contentious campaign day yet among the field of Democratic presidential contenders.
Clinton, a New York senator who is the front-runner in national public opinion polls, found herself under attack not only from Obama, but Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina. Biden also criticized Obama over a missed Senate vote, and Biden and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson sparred over a strategy to stabilize Iraq.
With the first caucuses and primaries less than three months away, Dennis Goldford, a professor of politics at Drake University, said the Democrats are responding as Clinton has been solidifying her lead in many polls.
"If you're seeking to be the un-Hillary, you've got to do something to shake it up," Goldford said.
Amid the attacks, Clinton picked up a valuable endorsement from Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, a hero of the civil rights movement. Obama's campaign said Lewis had a close relationship with former President Bill Clinton.
Obama used a speech before a few hundred students at Drake University's Old Main to blister Clinton as being part of a Congress that "failed" the public by leading the nation into a war with Iraq that should have never happened.
He also criticized her vote for a recent non-binding Senate resolution that labeled an offshoot of the Iranian military as a terrorist organization that is destabilizing Iraq. The resolution, Obama said, could provide a "blank check" for the Bush administration to refocus the U.S. military objective in Iraq toward fighting Iranian insurgents in Iran.
"She said, like she did five years ago [in a vote authorizing war in Iraq], that it is a way to support diplomacy," Obama said of Clinton. Obama said diplomacy should be conducted "separately from any saber-rattling about checking Iranian influence with our military presence in Iraq."
At a separate appearance in Des Moines, Biden called Clinton's vote for the Iranian resolution a "serious mistake." But Biden also questioned why Obama was campaigning in New Hampshire instead of staying in Washington voting against the resolution. "I wonder why he wasn't there to vote," Biden said. "We all knew that this vote was coming up."
Obama also attacked Clinton for saying she would negotiate without preconditions with Iran's leaders after she earlier had assailed Obama as "naïve" for saying as president he would meet with leaders of rogue nations without precondition.
"I'm not sure if any of us knows exactly where she's standing on this issue," Obama said. Edwards, whose attacks on Clinton have been more direct, said in a statement that the public deserves a president "who will tell them the truth and offer straight answers, not flip-flops and political doublespeak."
According to Clinton's campaign, the New York senator said the United States should enter into diplomatic talks with Iran, not a face-to-face presidential meeting as Obama said he would conduct without precondition. Her campaign also noted that Obama's colleague, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, also voted for the Senate resolution and did not believe it could be used as a pretense to invade Iran.
"Once again, Sen. Obama has abandoned the politics of hope to engage in the same old attack politics," said Clinton spokesman Phil Singer. "If Sen. Obama really believed that this measure gave the president a blank check for war, he should have been there, speaking out, and fighting against it."
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