On the Radar
Obama accuses Clinton of ‘playing on fear’
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by Associated Press
Friday, February 29, 2008
HOUSTON (AP) — Democrat
Barack Obama accused rival Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday of trying
to “play on people’s fears to scare up votes” with a television ad
showing sleeping children and asking who would be more qualified to
answer a national security emergency call at 3 a.m. “The question
is not about picking up the phone. The question is: What kind of
judgment will you make when you answer?” Obama said as he campaigned in
Texas ahead of crucial contests here and in Ohio on Tuesday. “We’ve
had a red phone moment. It was the decision to invade Iraq. And Senator
Clinton gave the wrong answer. George Bush gave the wrong answer. John
McCain gave the wrong answer,” Obama said. Obama’s response to
his Democratic rival’s ad — which began airing in Texas on Friday
morning — was a double-barreled swipe at both Clinton and the likely
Republican presidential nominee. Polls show a tight race between
Obama and Clinton in both states. Military issues play well in Texas,
home to 16 active-duty military bases, including Fort Hood, the
nation’s largest Army post. Clinton is casting herself as the
candidate with the experience and judgment to take command on
Inauguration Day. Obama, a first term senator, is seeking to chip away
at those arguments by suggesting he would have superior judgment. To
the sound of a ringing phone, the Clinton ad shows children sleeping at
night and a mother checking on a child as an announcer says a phone is
ringing in the White House and something has happened in the world. It
ends with an image of Clinton on the telephone as the announcer asks,
“It’s 3 a.m. and your children are safely asleep. Who do you want
answering the phone?” Obama responded: “We’ve seen these ads
before. They’re the kind that play on peoples’ fears to scare up votes.
Well, it won’t work this time.” In a reference to Senate votes by
both Clinton and McCain in October 2002 to authorize Bush to use force
in Iraq, Obama said that he voiced opposition to that war vote when he
was an Illinois state senator. He said it would cost thousands of lives
and billions of dollars. “I said that it would distract us from
the real threat we face and that we should take the fight to al-Qaida
in Afghanistan. That’s the judgment I made on the most important
foreign policy decision of our generation, and that’s the kind of
judgment I’ll show when I answer that phone in the White House as
president of the United States.” “That’s the judgment we need at 3 a.m. And that’s the judgment that I am running for President to provide,” he added. The
Obama campaign also responded to the new Clinton spot by re-airing an
ad in which retired Gen. Merrill McPeak, the Air Force chief of staff
from 1990 to 1994, endorses Obama. Addressing 60 veterans and
their families at a town hall meeting at American Legion Post 490 in
Houston, Obama said, “Veterans are bearing the brunt of bad
decision-making by our leaders.” The president’s job is “to keep
people safe. … It means deploying our military wisely,” he continued.
“War should not be the first resort. … lt should not be based on
politics.” He promised to improve health care and other services for
veterans if elected. “We are not serving our troops and our veterans as
well as they have been serving us,” Obama said. Since the
Democratic debate in Cleveland on Tuesday, Obama until Friday had
steered clear from mentioning Clinton by name in his appearances, while
repeatedly criticizing McCain over his support for Iraq and for Bush’s
economic policies. Obama did not serve in the military, but told
his audience that he comes from a military heritage, as does McCain, a
Navy pilot and Vietnam War prisoner of war whose father and grandfather
were Navy officers. Said Obama: “My grandfather enlisted after
Pearl Harbor and marched in Patton’s Army. My mother was born at Fort
Leavenworth, and my grandmother worked on a bomber assembly line. After
his service, America stood by my grandfather. He went to college on the
GI Bill, and bought his first home with help from the Federal Housing
Authority. Then he moved his family west to Hawaii, where I was born.
Today, he is buried in the Punchbowl Cemetery, where 776 victims of
Pearl Harbor are laid to rest.”
