Obama campaign hits Clinton left and right

It appears Barack Obama has decided to take his campaign to a whole new level and is mounting his strongest attacks yet against Hillary Clinton. He came out this morning with an op-ed in the New Hampshire Union Leader concentrating on the Kyl-Liberman Iran amendment making the Revolutionary Guard a terrorist group. Bringing up the 2002 vote on Iraq, Obama hits Clinton for giving the president a new blank check to pursue war with yet a new country:

Sen. Clinton says she was merely voting for more diplomacy, not war with Iran. If this has a familiar ring, it should. Five years after the original vote for war in Iraq, Sen. Clinton has argued that her vote was not for war -- it was for diplomacy, or inspections. But all of us knew what the Senate was debating in 2002. John Edwards has renounced his own vote for the war, and he should be applauded for his candor. After all, we didn't need to authorize a war in order to have United Nations weapons inspections. No one thought Congress was debating diplomacy. No newspaper headlines ran on Oct. 12, 2002, reading, "Congress authorizes diplomacy." This was a vote to authorize war, and without that vote, there would have been no war.

America needs a leader who will make the right judgments about matters as grave as war and peace, and America needs a leader who will be straight with them. When I spoke out against going to war in Iraq in 2002, I knew that I was putting my political career on the line. Going to war was popular; so was President Bush. But I felt strongly that a war in Iraq would lead to an open-ended and destructive occupation of Iraq, and weaken us in the fight against al-Qaida in Afghanistan. And I felt a responsibility to say so. Now, the Senate has once again voted for an amendment that goes out of its way to draw connections between distinct threats, and that replaces judicious policy-making with unnecessary saber-rattling. And once again, we hear that it is not really a vote for more war, it is a vote for more diplomacy.

This is obviously a very powerful argument. The 2002 war vote has haunted Clinton for years, and she has never apologized for it, betting that primary voters will not hold it against her. Obama's strongest argument has always been his initial opposition to the war -- so he is trying to capitalize on that. However, there are huge problems with his approach. The first is that Obama did not take part of the Iran vote -- so that it seems disingenuous for him to now hit Clinton for being the only Democrat supporting it. Where was Obama if this vote was that important?

Further, what the amendment is best known for is its labeling of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist group. This is something that is angering many people, and that could give the Administration the cover to start pursuing military options against Iran. Yet Obama has endorsed that labeling and co-sponsored an amendment back in April saying exactly that! Obama is now saying that what he objects to in the Kyl-Lieberman amendment is the linkage between Iran and Iraq: "unnecessary saber-rattling about checking Iranian influence with our "military presence in Iraq." This is what Obama thinks would give Bush the authority to strike Iran. On the other hand, Obama agrees that: "We do need to tighten sanctions on the Iranian regime, particularly on Iran's Revolutionary Guard, which sponsors terrorism far beyond Iran's borders."

In other words, Iran engages in terrorist activities... just not in Iraq. Labeling part of the Iranian army a terrorist group does not seem problematic to Obama -- does he really think the Bush Administration will need a connection to Iraq? Connecting Iran to the War on Terror certainly seems enough.

Obama also came out with a new ad today playing on the same themes but emphasizing the Iraq War vote of 2002. Obama does not name anyone but names, but he clearly differentiates himself from the rest of the field -- rather effective, and it could give many in the Democratic base second thoughts about supporting John Edwards or Hillary Clinton.

A last controversy is brewing up on Clinton's interview with the Washington Post yesterday in which the WaPo claimed she was "vague on torture." Obama immediately jumped on the story, and Clinton is pushing back saying the WaPo did not include her quote that we must have a "bright line" against torture and she released the full transcript of the interview. But that Clinton is even allowing torture to become an issue in the Democratic primary is very problematic.