GOP Candidates Blast Clinton, Obama On Iraq Vote

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said the “no” votes of Democratic presidential frontrunners Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Ill.) on the Iraq war funding bill equal surrendering to al Qaeda. “I was very disappointed to see Senator Obama and Senator Clinton embrace the policy of surrender by voting against funds to support our brave men and women fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan,” McCain, who is running for the GOP presidential nomination, said. “This vote may win favor with MoveOn and liberal primary voters, but it’s the equivalent of waving a white flag to al Qaeda.” Clinton and Obama were among the 14 senators who opposed the funding bill, which Congress sent to President Bush late Thursday.With the anti-war lobby likely to play a large role in the Democratic primary process, the vote posed a challenge to the Democratic frontrunners, who had to balance satisfying the base while not appearing to be unsupportive of the troops. Obama said the vote was “a choice between validating the same failed policy in Iraq that has cost us so many lives and demanding a new one.” Clinton stated that she voted against the measure “because it fails to compel the President to give our troops a new strategy in Iraq.” But former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, another GOP White House hopeful, said the two Democrats failed soldiers in harm’s way with their vote. Romney argued that the vote “singularly defines their lack of leadership and serves as a glaring example of an unrealistic and inexperienced worldview on national security that is regrettably shared by too many of their fellow Capitol Hill Democrats.”