Barack Obama on Thursday dismissed Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy approach as “Bush-Cheney lite” in the clearest indication yet that the proverbial gloves are coming off in the 2008 Democratic presidential race reports the Financial Times.
Mr. Obama’s remarks – the most direct criticism he has made so far of the Democratic frontrunner in the seven-month campaign – stemmed from a clash between the two senators during the fourth presidential debate in South Carolina on Monday night.
In an exchange that Mrs. Clinton was widely seen to have won, the former first lady poured cold water on Mr. Obama’s promise during the debate to hold talks with the world’s least savory dictators within his first year in the White House.
“I think it is not that you promise a meeting at that high a level before you know what the intentions are,” said Mrs. Clinton. “I don’t want to be used for propaganda purposes.”
In an interview with an Iowa newspaper the following day Mrs. Clinton dismissed Mr. Obama’s point of view as “irresponsible and naive”. Shortly afterwards Mr Obama used precisely the same language to describe Mrs. Clinton’s Senate vote authorizing the Iraq war in 2002. Although not a member of the Senate in 2002, Mr. Obama publicly opposed the war.
Read it here: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/45eb38e2-3bcc-11dc-8002-0000779fd2ac.html