Sign of Things to Come

What was the context of those quotes? That does surprise me. I'm admittedly an Edwards supporter, though I've been tempted by Obama (and Dodd) of late. It strikes me that at this point, Edwards' position on Iraq is ironically the most "pure".

-Alan

This is total FUD, and Clinton's people know it. What's left of my sympathy for Senator Clinton is evaporating fast.

Here is Obama in 2002 thoughtfully, but unambigiously stating his position:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=sXzmXy226po

The 2004 quotes were in the context of his parties Prez/Vice nominees (John Kerry and John Edwards) being in the middle of a race against the worst president in history. They had both voted for it, and Obama was trying not to undermine them in the middle of the race.

Keep digging, Clinton, I think you may have missed a few jaywalking tickets from when Obama was in high school.

I was at the forum-- in regards to the first quote, Greg Sargent addressed it earlier this week:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2007/03/obama_quote_tha.php

'In a recent interview, he declined to criticize Senators Kerry and Edwards for voting to authorize the war, although he said he would not have done the same based on the information he had at the time.

''But, I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports,'' Mr. Obama said. ''What would I have done? I don't know. What I know is that from my vantage point the case was not made.''

But Mr. Obama said he did fault Democratic leaders for failing to ask enough tough questions of the Bush administration to force it to prove its case for war. ''What I don't think was appropriate was the degree to which Congress gave the president a pass on this,'' he said.'

I agree that the Clinton people are taking the quote out of context, and thought that Axelrod was justified in calling Penn's attack dishonest. Penn's larger point that the "big three" have all behaved the same way when in the Senate is something to think about, but he diluted it by making this dishonest attack. He (and by extension, the Clinton campaign) did not come off well here, IMO.

I am also leaning towards Edwards lately. He has played all of the recent controversies right. The proper response to Coulter calling you a "faggot" is to call her out for being a prominent right-wing hatemonger and turn it to your fund-raising advantage. Good for him.

I'm sure the Edwards campaign would love nothing better than for the Obama and Clinton campaigns to pull each other down at every opportunity until they forget that they are supposed to be appealing to progressive/liberal/centrist voters and not trying to one-up each other.

One of the most affecting political stories I've heard recently is the one about Edwards's wrongheaded decision to vote for the Iraq ware. He admits that he was wrong to do it and that he did it for political reasons. This admission gives me a lot more faith that he may have learned his lesson and will do what is right and not what is expedient from now on. This contrition is not at all what I hear from Clinton or Obama. I don't begrudge anyone their Iraq war vote. It was a hard thing to stand up against. Even I had doubts that I was right to be against the war at the time. I could never begrudge anyone the desire to als out at the world after 9/11. The thing that counts now is whether or not you learned from the experience and are stronger as a result.

The Bush administration was very good at maintaining an aura of inevitability about the whole process. If it weren't for people like Paul Wellstone or Russ Feingold, there may have been no nationally prominent progressive voices.

I think it's a mistake for any campaign to get too caught up on criticizing others during a primary. Negative campaigning wins general elections by single digit percentages, not primaries. The most important thing to know for 2008, if you want my vote, is that I want someone with hope and ambitious plans, not someone who can triangulate their way through any important question.

Ok, I lose for not previewing. In my defense, the Time site was really slow and I got tired of waiting.

In the previous post:

als out = lash out
I used "begrudge" more than I intended.

May the spirits of Strunk and White forgive me.

Also: Axelrod mentioned "a new kind of politics" in almost all of his answers, and Penn focused on "Experience" and "Can fight back."

This little incident really seemed like a bit of a microcosm for the differences between the two campaigns. Penn trying to show that his campaign can fight (and bending the truth a bit while doing so), and Axelrod using it as a springboard for Obama's message about the smallness of our politics, saying something to the effect of (paraphrased): "That was a dishonest attack-- Are we just going to be savaging each other for the next ten months?? Senator Obama is trying to create a new kind of politics..." etc. Got substantial applause for it, if I remember correctly. The crowd definitely favored Axelrod with the most applause overall.

My take is this is more about trying to muddy the waters for Obama than trying to repair/dilute Clinton's vulnerability on the Iraq issue. They need to get the generally smooth sailing Obama campaign off message and off stride.

Thanks, AP. That's some fine reporting on those Obama quotes.

I don't want to get snippy or unfair to you, Karen-- this is a post-midnight blog post, obviously you're just relating what you saw and this isn't a final product-- but please be sure to note how unfair and unfounded these attacks were if you write about it in the magazine. It isn't just a signal of "more direct engagement"; it's deliberately misleading argumentation.

Too often, we've seen journalistic impartiality misconstrued as merely relating competing claims, rather than doing some reporting and evaluating whether they fit reality.

Personally, I don't really hold dumb stuff that Mark Penn said at a forum against Sen. Clinton herself, FWIW.

Being out in the hinterland, I watched Obama on LKL. I thought he did rather well and his statements would not support the claims of Penn. I'm still looking at O, Dodd and Edwards in no order.

The MSM will make me dig to find out about Dodd and Edwards. Quite frankly, I am totally disenfrachised living where I live. The big bang primary will decide that my voice and vote have no meaning.

Just wonder how many 'red state' small donor democrats out of the big loop don't get excited. Which gets to the real point of how do you get Independents to commit, instead of waiting until the general only to whine that they have no one to vote FOR.

Is there any truth that just off camera, one could hear Edwards staffers handing Penn and Axelrod additional clubs to beat each other with?

Come to your senses, Democrats, John Edwards is the man to unite the party.

Edwards-Obama 08.

Fine, right, they're virtually indistinguishable. But then, if Clinton thinks she's the same candidate as Obama, then why is she running?

I get the feeling that we are all susceptible to the same reaction. If we like our candidate then we look for exculpatory stuff. If we don't: we absorb the negative stuff. The comparision between Clinton and Obama has a time and atmosphere context. The people have to actually vote were influenced by not only slanted intelligence and briefings (pace Sen Leahy) but out in the country the support for the war and the mindless cheer leading were factors.

My admiration is for those Senators who actually voted against the resolution to go to war. Yet we give them no chance in the primary. If we really mean what we say, why is there no support for that no-vote Senator?

If Senator Obama wants to dine out on his stated views on the war that's fine. But the further you got from Washington the easier it got to say no. So I don't bother too much with that. I am very interested in looking at the Senator's policy on health care and the deficits and of course how he plans to get us out of this war. Bush is never going to do that

It is also Karen Tumulty's job to make the clarification that statements where taken out of context by the Clinton camp for political gamesmanship and she didn't. Anyone who reads the blog without reading the comments would leave with the impression the Clinton camp was right.
Not fair to Obama.

Edwards is my choice also. I'm not sure if flying under the radar at this point is a good thing or a bad thing. We've seen in the past that national polls this far out have little bearing on who is the eventual nominee. And not being one of the two top dogs when the MSM is salivating over what "-gate" they can make stick to a Democratic candidate might work out okay.

One important thing for Edwards supporters....they will be reporting on Q1 fund raising ending on 3/31....and it will be important for Edwards to look strong with his numbers....if you can spare a dime, brudda, how about throwing some sheckles Edwards way....

http://www.johnedwards.com/

I think this is exactly why people have issues with the MSM. Ms. Tumlty does a good job of reporting the "gotcha" moment, which reporters love, without examining the context of the attack or its validity. While she mentions that Mr. Axelrod said the quote was taken out of context, she didn't go back and find the context to show that Mr. Penn's attack was indeed unfounded. I don't have any problem with horse-race journalism as a part of campaign reporting, but it needs to be done with equally with an eye for accuracy rather than acting as a simple stenographer.

I agree with you Rachel, there are some (like us) who search through the noise for the 'news' but most people don't have the time/inclination to make the investment. And the media gives them a raw deal by reporting without feeling the need to be as accurate as possible.
That is why I think Obama provides some hope, he insists we must think and get involved. About time someone told us that we have the right to ask questions and expect answers.

The CIA delivers the classified version of its 90-page National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq (see October 1, 2002) to Congress. It is available for viewing by Congresspersons under tight security in the offices of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees. [Washington Post, 6/22/2003; Vanity Fair, 5/2004, pp. 281] But no more than a half-dozen or so members actually come to review the NIE, despite the urgings of Peter Zimmerman, the scientific advisor to the Senate foreign relations committee, who is one of the first to look at the document. Zimmerman was stunned to see how severely the dissenting opinions of the Energy Department and the State Department undercut the conclusions that were so boldly stated in the NIE’s “Key Judgments” section. He later recalls, “Boy, there’s nothing in there. If anybody takes the time to actually read this, they can’t believe there actually are major WMD programs.” One of the lawmakers who does read the document is Senator Bob Graham (D-Fl). Like Zimmerman, he is disturbed by the document’s “many nuances and outright dissents.” But he is unable to say anything about them in public because the NIE is classified. [Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 133-134, 137]

Did Clinton even bother to read the report?

Enclosed are both the clear quotes as well as a timeline of Obama statements
on Iraq...

WHAT YOU MIGHT HEAR

In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, Obama noted that once the war
began, "...There's not much of a difference between my position and George
Bush's position at this stage." [Chicago Tribune, 7/27/2004]

WHAT OBAMA SAID
"Obama, the U.S. Senate candidate from Illinois, said he believes the Bush
administration has lost too much credibility in the world community to
administer the policies necessary to stabilize Iraq.

'On Iraq, on paper, there's not as much difference, I think, between the
Bush administration and a Kerry administration as there would have been a
year ago,' Obama said during a luncheon meeting with editors and reporters
of Tribune newspapers. "There's not that much difference between my position
and George Bush's position at this stage. The difference, in my mind, is
who's in a position to execute.'

Stephanie Cutter, communications director for the Kerry campaign, did not
dispute Obama's statement, but said the true comparison rests in the
differences over the past two years. 'If you look on paper, [Bush] has come
our way, but he has come our way at a significant cost in terms of blood and
treasure,' Cutter said Monday. 'Bush finally agreed to go to the
international community, but in voters' minds that doesn't change their
opinion as to why we're at war or how the president mismanaged the war from
day one.'

Obama, a state senator from Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood, opposed the
Iraq invasion before the war. But he now believes U.S. forces must remain to
stabilize the war-ravaged nation--a policy not dissimilar to the current
approach of the Bush administration.

The problem, Obama said, is the low regard for Bush in the international
community. 'How do you stabilize a country that is made up of three
different religious and in some cases ethnic groups, with minimal loss of
life and minimum burden to the taxpayers?' Obama said. 'I am skeptical that
the Bush administration, given baggage from the past three years, not just
on Iraq. . . . I don't see them having the credibility to be able to
execute. I mean, you have to have a new administration to execute what the
Bush administration acknowledges has to happen.'"

WHAT YOU MIGHT HEAR

BLITZER: "Had you been in the Senate when they had a vote on whether to give
the president the authority to go to war, how would you have voted?"

OBAMA: "You know, I didn't have the information that was available to
senators." [CNN, "Late Edition," 07/25/04]

WHAT OBAMA SAID
BLITZER: Had you been in the Senate when they had a vote on whether to give
the president the authority to go to war, how would you have voted?

OBAMA: You know, I didn't have the information that was available to
senators. I know that, as somebody who was thinking about a U.S. Senate
race, I think it was a mistake, and I think I would have voted no.

BLITZER: You would have voted no at the time?

OBAMA: That's correct.

BLITZER: Kerry, of course, and Edwards both voted yes.

OBAMA: But keep in mind, I think this is a tough question and a tough call.
What I do think is that if you're going to make these tough calls, you have
to do so in a transparent way, in an honest way, talk to the American
people, trust their judgment. [CNN, 'Late Edition,' 7/25/2004]

WHAT YOU MIGHT HEAR

"I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports," Mr. Obama said. "What would
I have done? I don't know. What I know is that from my vantage point the
case was not made." [New York Times, 07/26/04]

WHAT OBAMA SAID

"He opposed the war in Iraq, and spoke against it during a rally in Chicago
in the fall of 2002. He said then that he saw no evidence that Iraq had
unconventional weapons that posed a threat, or of any link between Saddam
Hussein and Al Qaeda.

"In a recent interview, he declined to criticize Senators Kerry and Edwards
for voting to authorize the war, although he said he would not have done the
same based on the information he had at the time.

"'But, I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports,' Mr. Obama said. 'What
would I have done? I don't know. What I know is that from my vantage point
the case was not made.'

"But Mr. Obama said he did fault Democratic leaders for failing to ask
enough tough questions of the Bush administration to force it to prove its
case for war. 'What I don't think was appropriate was the degree to which
Congress gave the president a pass on this,' he said." [New York Times,
7/26/2004]

WHAT YOU MIGHT HEAR

Asked by NPR about John Kerry and John Edwards voting for the war, Obama
said: "I think that there is room for disagreement in that initial
decision." [NPR, 7/27/04]

WHAT OBAMA SAID

BLOCK: I've read about a speech you gave in the fall of 2002. It had to do
with the looming war in Iraq.

Sen. OBAMA: Right.

BLOCK: It made quite a splash. Can you tell me about that?

Sen. OBAMA: I delivered a speech to a couple of thousand people at a
anti-war rally in Chicago. And I said, `It's not that I'm opposed to all
wars. It's just that I think this is not the right war to fight.' I don't
consider that to have been an easy decision, and certainly, I wasn't in the
position to actually cast a vote on it. But what I do think is that we need
a foreign policy that is less ideologically driven and pays more attention
to facts on the ground.

BLOCK: This ticket, obviously, John Kerry and John Edwards, both senators
voted for the war.

Sen. OBAMA: Yeah. Well--and I think that there is room for disagreement in
that initial decision. Where I think we have to be unified is to recognize
that we've got an enormous task ahead in actually making Iraq work. And that
is going to take the kind of international cooperation that I think the Bush
administration has shown difficulty pulling off, and I think that the
Kerry-Edwards campaign is going to be better prepared to do.

WHAT YOU MIGHT HEAR

In "Audacity," Obama allowed that he was: "sympathetic to the pressures
Democrats were under" (p. 293), adding: "I didn't consider the case against
war to be cut-and- dried." (p. 294)

WHAT OBAMA SAID

"And on October 11, 2002, twenty-eight of the Senate's fifty Democrats
joined all but one Republican in handing to Bush the power he wanted.

I was disappointed in that vote, although sympathetic to the pressures
Democrats were under. I had felt some of those same pressures myself. By the
fall of 2002, I had already decided to run for the U.S. Senate and knew that
possible war with Iraq would loom large in any campaign. When a group of
Chicago activists asked if I would speak at a large antiwar rally planned
for October, a number of my friends warned me against taking so public a
position on such a volatile issue. Not only was the idea of an invasion
increasingly popular, but on the merits I didn't consider the case against
war to be cut-and-dried. Like most analysts, I assumed that Saddam had
chemical and biological weapons and coveted nuclear arms. I believed that he
had repeatedly flouted UN resolutions and weapons inspectors and that such
behavior had to have consequences. That Saddam butchered his own people was
undisputed; I had no doubt that the world, and the Iraqi people, would be
better off without him.

What I sensed, though, was that the threat Saddam posed was not imminent,
the Administration's rationales for war were flimsy and ideologically
driven, and the war in Afghanistan was far from complete. And I was certain
that by choosing precipitous, unilateral military action over the hard slog
of diplomacy, coercive inspections, and smart sanctions, America was missing
an opportunity to build a broad base of support for its policies. [The
Audacity Of Hope, pp. 293-294]

ROBERT GIBBS

Communications Director

Obama for America

"All of this suggests a new turn in the campaign, and a more direct engagement by Clinton's operation on the issue that could be her greatest vulnerability in the Democratic primary: her vote in favor of the invasion."

Clinton's greatest vulnerability is you and your fellow hacks who continue describing her as "calculating" and "scripted" and "poll driven" and all the rest, while giving other politicians -- particularly Republicans -- a free ride for doing the same things.

Matthew Yglesias can pull quotes, too:

http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2007/03/then_and_now/

OK, the only actual quote is from the original article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/17/AR2005121700817.html

"It is important for Democrats to understand that despite Bush's decline, America remains a moderate to conservative country -- particularly on economic and security measures."

Mark Penn was pro-war in December 2005. Perhaps someone else should try to push this story?

Hillary Clinton and John Edwards are bailing from the same boat, with one large exception. John Edwards co-sponsored the Iraq War Resolution and as late as the '04 election run-up was still justifying his position on this. There were plenty of other Democrats who did not vote for the resolution. Maybe it's just me, but I want a president who gets it right the FIRST time.

Karen,
No offense, but this is a perfect example of the worthless horserace journalism that you MSMers seem to luuuv.

You say this:

Obama strategist David Axelrod, appearing at the same forum, was visibly surprised by the sudden attack, and said Penn was taking Obama's quotes out of context. He also suggested that Penn had not portrayed them in "an honest way."

And rather than your next paragraph saying something like this:

After doing some research in the Nexis archives, it turns out that Axelrod was telling the truth/lying when he said that.

You tell us about the horserace:

All of this suggests a new turn in the campaign, and a more direct engagement by Clinton's operation on the issue that could be her greatest vulnerability in the Democratic primary: her vote in favor of the invasion.

This last paragraph is pure opinion, as are most paragraphs by journalists that start out with "all of this suggests..."

Please stop. This commentary is useless to voters who want to be informed about things that matter.