Iraq War, Iran Dominate Democrats' TV Debate

I have seen all these debates before and I am tired of hearing about the war in Iraq at the Democratic Presidential debates. I don't know why the war in Iraq continues to dominate the debates when there are so many domestic issues that need to be discussed such as health care, education and the divide in this country economic wise. We need our Presidential candidates to stop worrying so much about international issues such as Iran and the war in Iraq and start focusing more of their speeches on more national domestic issues that will save all Americans in the long run such as social security, health care and the economy.

Until I see more of a change in the rhetoric, I won't be seeing another key debate amongst the Democratic Presidential candidates until probably December or January because as of now, I am not hearing anything different in these debates that I haven't heard already.

2008 Democrats joust on Iraq

Top Democratic presidential hopefuls traded their sharpest barbs yet of the 2008 White House race, as differences over Iraq burst into the open during their second televised debate.

In a string of snappy exchanges, senators Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and ex-vice presidential nominee John Edwards sparred over the initial US decision to launch a war which has now killed 3,488 US soldiers.

The three top candidates avoided the kind of gaffes which could threaten their campaigns, and long-shot candidates struggled for exposure, in an event which cranked up the intensity of the marathon race.

Edwards provoked the sniping early in the event Sunday in New Hampshire, which hosts the first state primary election in January, accusing Clinton and Obama of not doing enough as lawmakers to bring troops home.

"It is the difference between leading and following," he said, referring to his demands for Congress to immediately use its power to cut war funding.

"There is a difference between leadership and legislating."

Clinton and Obama last month voted against a new $100 billion emergency war budget, under pressure from the very grassroots activists Edwards appeared to be courting with his debate tactics.

Obama scolded Edwards, who like Clinton was a member of the Senate in 2002 and voted to authorize President George W. Bush to go to war in Iraq, though Edwards has since repudiated his vote.

"I opposed this war from the start. So you are about four-and-a-half years late on leadership on this issue," said Obama, who was not in the Senate in 2002, and so was spared the politically dicey choice.

On a day in which the US military reported another 14 American deaths in Iraq, Edwards later acknowledged Obama - as a way of swiping at frontrunner Clinton, who again declined to say her vote to authorize war was a mistake.

"He deserves credit for being against this war from the beginning. He was right. I was wrong," said Edwards.

"I think it is important for anybody who seeks to be the next president of the United States, given the dishonesty that we have been faced with over the last several years, to be honest to the country."

Clinton, who has vowed to get troops home from Iraq if she is elected president, trained fire back at Bush, and Republican candidates who will hold their own New Hampshire debate Tuesday.....

Iraq Is the Focus as Eight Democratic Rivals Clash

Democratic presidential candidates lined up before their debate. From left, Senator Chris Dodd, former Senator John Edwards, Senator Hillary Clinton, Senator Barack Obama and Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico.

The three leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination attacked each other overtly and subtly Sunday over Iraq and their judgment, honesty and leadership in handling that war.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, the front-runner in national polls, both drew fire and calmly returned it in the second nationally televised Democratic debate, arguing that the differences among the Democrats were minor compared with their differences with President Bush.

But former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina repeatedly went after Mrs. Clinton and Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, accusing them of being followers in Congress — not leaders — in the effort to bring an end to the war.


“There are differences between us,” said Mr. Edwards, who has campaigned hard for the support of antiwar Democrats. “And I think Democratic voters deserve to know the differences between us. I think there is a difference between making very clear when the crucial moment comes, on Congress ending this war, what your position is, and standing quiet.”

Mr. Obama, for his part, noted that he opposed the war while still in the Illinois Senate in the fall of 2002, unlike Mr. Edwards, who voted to authorize the use of force but has since repudiated that vote. “The fact is that I opposed this war from the start,” Mr. Obama said to Mr. Edwards. “So you’re about four and a half years late on leadership on this issue.”


It was one of several striking exchanges — arguably the sharpest of the Democratic campaign — that highlighted the three-way nature of this race for the nomination. The eight Democratic candidates squared off on the campus of St. Anselm College here, just outside Manchester, in a state that has jealously protected its traditional position as the first primary in the nation.
Stagecraft heightened political reality, with CNN placing the three front-runners next to one another before tall lecterns for the first hour of the two-hour debate. Mrs. Clinton was in the center, a place she also sought to hug on the political spectrum.

Often, she seemed to be looking beyond the Democratic primary and toward the general election. On the war in particular, she seemed intent on focusing attention not on her initial vote to authorize the war and how her record on that issue compares with the records of her rivals for the nomination, but on the larger divide between the two parties.


“This is George Bush’s war,” Mrs. Clinton said. “And what we are trying to do, whether it’s by speaking out from the outside or working and casting votes that actually make a difference from the inside, we are trying to end the war.”.....

Dems duke it out in New Hampshire

After months of laying equal claim as the leading voice against the war in Iraq, the eight Democratic presidential candidates fought face-to-face in a debate here Sunday to sharpen the distinctions among them--at points even casting blame over how each has handled the issue.

Most aggressive in criticizing his opponents was former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, who bluntly accused Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois of following rather than leading on the question of the war, and for going "quietly to the floor of the Senate" to cast a recent vote against the Iraq spending bill rather than trumpeting their decision to do so.

Obama quickly protested that he "opposed this war from the start," and pointed out that, as an initial supporter of the war, Edwards was "about 4 1/2 years late" in laying claim to the role of leader on the issue.

Clinton defended her vote to authorize the war, which she said was based on all of the information available at the time, and she sought to play down what she said were small distinctions among the Democrats on the stage--especially compared to the Republican candidates who will debate at the same venue on Tuesday.

"We all believe that we need to try to end this war," Clinton said. "In two nights you're going to have the Republican candidates here. They all support the war. They all support the president. They all supported the escalation. Each of us is trying in our own way to bring the war to an end."

But after weeks of conducting a mostly detached and indirect discussion about the war on the campaign trail, the Democratic candidates were working aggressively to more clearly distinguish themselves from one another--and, in particular, from frontrunner Clinton--on the war as well as on other key issues, most notably health care.

The nationally televised debate gave voters in New Hampshire their first in-person exposure to the full complement of Democratic candidates, in a debate that Obama and Clinton had initially shied away from joining because it isn't among those the Democratic National Committee has sanctioned.

Their reluctance contributed to the anxiety of some New Hampshire officials, already fretting that their traditional influence as the first-in-the-nation primary may be threatened by recent decisions of other states to move their primaries up from later dates to January and February of next year.

But the top contenders not only chose to participate but also went on to wage the most vigorous face-to-face discussion so far in the primary season. All of the major Democratic candidates took part in the two-hour, commercial-free debate.

Especially aggressive throughout the discussion was Edwards, who perhaps is feeling a need to set himself apart from the crowd. A new ABC/Washington Post poll of national respondents shows the former vice presidential nominee is not making gains among voters who are leaning Democratic.

The debate echoed themes of the first Democratic debate earlier this spring, which also focused tightly on the war. The landscape has changed since then, though, with Clinton, Obama and Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut among a group of Senate Democrats who voted against a war-spending bill because provisions calling for troop withdrawal had been removed from it.

National Republicans have suggested that those votes were actually votes against the welfare of American troops in Iraq--an argument alluded to Sunday night by Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, the chairman of the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee, who voted for the funding bill.

Some of the money would go for equipment that would improve the safety of American troops, he said.

"Lives are at stake," Biden said. "I knew the right political vote, but I tell you what. Some things are worth losing elections over."

Clinton countered that the Bush administration refuses to end the war and that it's time for members of Congress "to say enough is enough."

"I thought the best way to support our troops was to try to send a very strong message that they should begin to come home," she said.

Edwards agreed with that vote by Clinton and Obama, but said the way they cast it was "the difference between leading and following."

"They cast the right vote, and I applaud them for that," he said. "But ... I think all of us have a responsibility to lead on these issues--not just on Iraq, but on health care, on energy, on all the other issues."

As for Obama's early opposition to the war, Edwards later allowed, "He was right. I was wrong" in voting to authorize the war. That quickly turned into a discussion of whether Clinton regrets her vote, which she reiterated she made after being "thoroughly briefed" on all of the arguments and information available at the time.

She said it didn't matter that she hadn't read a copy of an intelligence report available to members of Congress, a notion also challenged by Obama. One lawmaker cited that report specifically as one of the reasons he voted against the war, Obama said, "so obviously there was some pertinent information in there."....

Democrats debate politely — except on the war

Former North Carolina senator John Edwards, left, New york Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, center, and Illinois Senator Barack Obama, right, stand on stage prior to the start of the Democratic Presidential Candidates Debate.
(AFP/Getty Images)

Eight presidential hopefuls are mostly amiable to one another. The few jagged exchanges are over Iraq.




Eight Democratic presidential hopefuls differed sharply over Iraq and terrorism Sunday night in a largely polite debate that highlighted their contrasting histories on the war.



In one of the most barbed exchanges of the evening, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama snapped at former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards for suggesting that Obama and New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton had failed to show leadership in withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.



Obama, who opposed the war before he was elected to the Senate, noted that Edwards had voted in 2002 to authorize President Bush to invade Iraq.



"I think, John, the fact is, is that I opposed this war from the start," Obama said. "So you are about 4 1/2 years late on leadership on this issue."



Edwards, who reiterated Sunday that he regrets his 2002 vote, has taken one of the strongest antiwar positions of the Democratic candidates, calling on Congress to cut off funding for the war.



Obama said it was "important not to play politics on something that is as critical and as difficult as this."

"I'll let Hillary speak for herself," Obama said, "but the fact of the matter is, is that all of us exercise our best judgment, just as we exercised our best judgment to authorize or not authorize this war."

Clinton, whose vote to authorize force in Iraq has proved a drag on her appeal to the party's antiwar faction, was the least confrontational of the three."What we are trying to do, whether it's by speaking out from the outside or working and casting votes that actually make a difference from the inside, we are trying to end the war," she said.



Clinton has called for a congressional resolution withdrawing approval of military action in Iraq. Like Obama and Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), another presidential hopeful, Clinton voted last month against the latest bill funding the war.



The candidates, meeting in their second debate of the campaign, also differed over healthcare, with Edwards this time on the offense......

Democrats Get Combative Over Iraq

Democratic front-runners (from left) Hillary Rodham Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama get combative in second presidential candidates debate over issues of the war in Iraq, immigration, and healthcare.

Healthcare, Immigration, Bush are Hot Topics in Second Debate

The Democratic presidential candidates Sunday night differed sharply on issues of national security and the Iraq war, with the initial vote to authorize the war — and last month's vote to provide more war funding — coming into focus in the second Democratic debate of the 2008 campaign.

In a far more combative evening than the campaign's initial debate, former senator John Edwards, D-N.C., said the nation is not safer than it was before Sept. 11, 2001, and chided his opponents — particularly Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. — for not pushing harder to end the war.

They went quietly to the floor of the Senate, cast the right vote, but there is a difference between leadership and legislating," Edwards said. "Senator Clinton and Senator Obama did not say anything about how they were going to vote until they appeared on the floor of the Senate and voted. They were among the last people to vote."

Obama shot back by suggesting that Edwards is seeking to "play politics" with votes on war funding, and noted that he — alone among the top tier of presidential candidates — opposed the Iraq war before it began.

"I think, John, the fact is that I opposed this war from the start. So, you're about four and a half years late on leadership on this issue," Obama said.

Clinton continued to refuse to apologize for her vote to authorize the war, and said she doesn't regret her decision to not read the National Intelligence Estimate prepared for Congress on Iraq's weapons programs before the vote was authorized.

"I was thoroughly briefed. I knew all the arguments," she said. She also said the U.S. is safer than it was before 9/11 — though "not yet safe enough" — and repeated her refusal to apologize for her vote. "That was a sincere vote," she said.

Clinton also rejected Edwards' contention — repeated three times by the former North Carolina senator — that the "war on terror" is a slogan fit for a "bumper sticker."....

Iraq Is the Flash Point as Eight Democratic Rivals Clash

Democratic presidential candidates lined up before their debate. From left, Senator Chris Dodd, former Senator John Edwards, Senator Hillary Clinton, Senator Barack Obama and Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico.

The three leading Democratic candidates engaged in their most spirited clash of the 2008 presidential campaign in a debate last night, challenging one other about cutting off money for the Iraq war and about voting to authorize military action in the first place.





Former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina assailed Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama by name for “standing quiet” on the recent Iraq war spending bill and not insisting on a timetable to withdraw United States troops. Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama ultimately voted against the bill because it lacked the timetable Mr. Edwards wanted.



“They went quietly to the floor of the Senate, cast the right vote, but there is a difference between leadership and legislating,” Mr. Edwards said during the debate at St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H.



Asked to “name names” by the debate moderator, the CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer, Mr. Edwards said: “Senator Clinton and Senator Obama did not say anything about how they were going to vote until they appeared on the floor of the Senate and voted.”



With that, Mr. Obama, and to a lesser extent Mrs. Clinton, pushed back aggressively against Mr. Edwards, and in doing so gave viewers a first opportunity to size up the rivals’ contrasting positions, political styles and combat techniques.



Mr. Obama said quickly that he believed it was “important to lead,” and then took a shot at Mr. Edwards for being, as a senator in 2002, a full-throated advocate of military threats against Iraq and a supporter of the Senate resolution that year authorizing military force.
“John, the fact is, is that I opposed this war from the start. So you are about four and a half years late on leadership on this issue,” said Mr. Obama, who has campaigned on his firm opposition to the war since 2002.



Mrs. Clinton did not respond directly to Mr. Edwards’s riposte, instead seeking to rise above it and follow her long-standing strategy of keeping the onus of the war on the Bush administration and not on the Democrats.



“I think it’s important particularly to point out, this is George Bush’s war — he is responsible for this war,” Mrs. Clinton said. “He started the war. He mismanaged the war. He escalated the war. And he refuses to end the war.”



The event was a stark contrast to the previous debate among the Democratic candidates, in which Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama and Mr. Edwards largely shied away from confronting one other.



At one point, Mrs. Clinton drew Mr. Edwards’s fire when she tried to minimize the differences between the two of them on Iraq by saying that he was fighting from the outside and she, as a current senator, from within Congress to put pressure on both the Bush administration and the Iraqi government.



“The differences among us are minor — the differences between us and the Republicans are major,” Mrs. Clinton said.



Mr. Edwards — who has apologized for his 2002 vote, while Mrs. Clinton has not — replied that there were distinctions among the Democratic rivals.



“I think there is a difference between making very clear, when the crucial moment comes on Congress ending this war, what your position is, and standing quiet,” Mr. Edwards said. He added that it was important that presidential candidates “be honest to the country” about their positions on Iraq, prewar and now; he complimented Mr. Obama but said nothing about Mrs. Clinton.



Mrs. Clinton, meanwhile, side-stepped a direct question about whether she made a mistake voting in 2002 for military force in Iraq when she had not read the classified National Intelligence Estimate that fall that laid out details about Iraqi capabilities and prewar intelligence.



“I feel like I was totally briefed, I knew all of the arguments that were being made by everyone from all directions,” she said.



Mr. Obama and Mr. Edwards also argued, in light of the recently uncovered plot to attack Kennedy International Airport, that more steps had to be taken against terrorist cells. Mr. Obama said the Bush administration’s strategy to thwart terrorism in the United States was not a success, while Mr. Edwards said the war on terror was simply a slogan of the administration’s to justify controversial activities.





“What this global war on terror bumper sticker — political slogan, that’s all it is, it’s all it’s ever been — was intended to do was for George Bush to use it to justify everything he does. The ongoing war in Iraq; Guantánamo; Abu Ghraib; spying on Americans; torture; none of those things are O.K.. They are not the United States of America,” Mr. Edwards said.

U.S. Democrats argue over Iraq strategy in debate

The Democratic presidential front-runners came under attack from a rival on Sunday for showing insufficient leadership on ending the war in Iraq in a debate in which the main target was President George W. Bush.

The two-hour exchange in the election proving ground of New Hampshire came 17 months before the November 2008 presidential election and featured squabbling and sharp attacks on Bush's war policy, but not much agreement on the best way to get the United States out of Iraq.
"This is George Bush's war," said New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton as she sought to blunt the attack from former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards that her vote late last month against funding for the Iraq war was done in a quiet way.

Edwards, the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2004, accused Clinton and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, the two candidates who hold a solid lead over him in opinion polls, of lacking leadership on extricating U.S. troops from Iraq.

He based his attack on Democrats' failure to set a timetable for a troop pullout with the funding vote.

There is a difference "between leadership and legislating," Edwards said at the debate at St. Anselm College.

"Senator Clinton and Senator Obama did not say anything about how they were going to vote until they appeared on the floor of the Senate and voted. They were among the last people to vote," he said.

"They cast the right vote, and I applaud them for that. But the importance of this is, they're asking to be president of the United States," he added.

Clinton and Obama quickly defended themselves.

"It is not easy to vote for cutting off funding, because the fact is there are troops on the ground," Obama said, noting that he had opposed the war from the outset.

"So you're about four and a half years late on leadership on this issue," Obama responded to Edwards.

A longshot candidate, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, was the only candidate who voted for the funding. He defended his vote as essential to protecting U.S. troops in combat.

Both Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich and former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel, two even longer shot candidates, joined Edwards in criticizing the front-runners for not doing enough to stop the war.....

Democrats Clash on War on Terror, Iraq

Democratic presidential candidates clashed on Sunday on Iraq and over the security of the country since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, trailing both New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama in national polls, criticized their cautious approach in forcing President Bush to withdraw troops from Iraq.

While some members of Congress spoke out "loudly and clearly" last month against legislation to pay for the war through September but without a withdrawal timetable, "others did not," Edwards said.

"Others were quiet. They went quietly to the floor of the Senate, cast the right vote. But there is a difference between leadership and legislating," Edwards said.

Both Clinton and Obama voted against the bill - which passed - but without making a strong case against the legislation.

"I think it's obvious who I'm talking about," Edwards said.

Clinton disagreed with Edwards, both in his comments on her role on Iraq and in his characterization of Bush's global war on terrorism as a "political slogan, a bumper sticker."

As a senator from New York, "I have seen first hand the terrible damage that can be inflicted on our country by a small band of terrorists," Clinton said.

Still, she said, "I believe we are safer than we were."

Obama said that the administration's war in Iraq had detracted from efforts to root out terrorists.

"We live in a more dangerous world partly as a consequence of this president's actions," Obama said.

The candidates sought to highlight their own differences on the war in Iraq.
Obama told Edwards, who voted in October 2002 to authorize the war in Iraq but now says that the vote was a mistake: "John, you're about four and a half years late on leadership on this issue."

Obama was not in the Senate at the time of the vote but had voiced opposition to the war resolution at the time.

Edwards conceded, "He was right, I was wrong" on opposing the war from the beginning. And Edwards sought to highlight his change of heart on his vote with Clinton's continuing refusal to disavow her vote for the war resolution.

Said Clinton: "That was a sincere vote."

She again declined to say her vote was wrong.

Edwards chastised Clinton and Obama for waiting till the last possible moment to cast their vote against a bill paying for the troops because it lacked a timetable for withdrawing U.S. forces.

Both Edwards and Clinton agreed that they voted for the war resolution in 2002 without reading an intelligence report on Iraq that was available to them. Both said they sought other information and believed they were thoroughly briefed.....