Tuesday June 17, 2008 at 17:03
Terrorism Takes Center Stage as Obama Responds to McCain Camp's Charges
John McCain and Barack Obama traded charges on who’s right and toughest on terrorism. The McCain camp earlier today jumped on statements Obama made about addressing terrorism within the constraints of our Constitution. McCain claimed this was a Sept. 10 mindset (i.e. pre-9/11). They are clearly trying to paint Obama as weak on terror and box him into a ‘law enforcement’ approach.
Obama’s camp fired back that by violating our constitution to go after terrorist we have diminished our standing in the world. Also, the said McCain’s criticism ignored Obama’s goals of beefing up the military; increasing troops in Afghanistan to go after Al-Qaeda and the Taliban; and even to attack terrorist targets in Pakistan if the Pakistanis won’t act on intelligence. Obama insists we can use a combination of law enforcement, military action, and covert action to conduct the war on terror and that we can do so without violating our own Constitution.
Richard Clarke, former counter-terrorism czar under Clinton and Bush, responding for the Obama campaign said, “I’m frankly a little disgusted by some of the attacks of some of my friends on the McCain campaign to use the same old tired tactics of the past several campaigns, trying to paint one party as weak on terrorism and completely distorting the record of pone party, to drive a wedge for partisan advantage and to frighten Americans.”
