At a town hall in Roseburg, Oregon, Barack Obama took on Republican John McCain on both foreign policy and domestic issues - over and over and over again. All the while, Obama assured the crowd that the differences between Hillary Clinton and himself “pale in comparison” with differences Democrats have with the presumptive Republican nominee.

For the second day in a row, Obama took issue with George Bush’s appeasement comments as well as John McCain’s questioning Obama’s ability to keep the country safe. “If George Bush and John McCain have a problem with direct diplomacy, led by the President of the United States, then they can explain why they have a problem with John F Kennedy because that’s what he did with Krushchev, or Ronald Reagan, ’cause that’s what he did with Gorbachev, or Richard Nixon ’cause that’s what they did with Mao. That’s exactly the kind of diplomacy we need to keep us safe,” Obama said defiantly.

Obama then moved onto domestic issues, criticizing McCain’s health care plan and likened it to the president’s policies over the past eight years. “Like George Bush, he’s offering a plan that works great if you’re already healthy and wealthy, but if you don’t have health care or if you’re struggling to pay for it, John McCain’s only answer is a tax cut that won’t guarantee coverage and wont make it affordable,” he observed, adding, “I don’t think that the American people can afford to double down on the failed health care policies of the Bush years, I believe we need to end them.”

And he didn’t stop there - during the Q&A, Obama dismissed McCain’s record on fuel efficiency and the environment. “For him to come to Oregon as an environmental president, but his big strategy is to do more drilling and to have a gas tax holiday for three months, that’s a phony solution,” he said. “John McCain has consistently been opposed to fuel efficiency standards, to raising fuel efficiency standards on cars. How is he gonna meet any of these targets? Maybe he’s kind of imagining it the way he did imagining get out of the war in Iraq,” he said caustically.

For good measure, Obama noted McCain has not announced plans to fix Social Security or to reduce college tuition costs. Obama concluded, “He hasn’t said, because this is not something that he thinks necessarily is a priority.”

If there was any doubt that Obama believes the Democrats will unite to take on John McCain, he made it clear today. “So that’s the debate that we’re looking forward to having and I believe that whoever the Democratic nominee is, that the other person is going to be standing right next to ‘em making the case for fundamental change for America.”

The McCain camp, of course, weighed in on Obama’s Oregon Offensive, saying the junior senator from Illinois showed “weak judgment” by his willingness to bring the Iranian president to the world stage, and defended the Arizona senator’s commitment to increasing fuel standards, by sending out a list of times the Republican  has voted for strengthening CAFE standards.

President Bush seemingly waded into the ‘08 fray during a speech before the the Israeli parliament yesterday, causing a firestorm of back-and-forth between the three ‘08 contenders. The offending comment - “Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along…We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

While Bush didn’t name names (and the White House says the President was not specifically referring to Obama), of course it has been Barack Obama who has said on the campaign trail that he will meet with friends and foes - including Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Obama campaign quickly responded to Mr. Bush’s statement, saying it was “sad” that the president used his speech commemorating the 60th anniversary of Israel’s independence to “launch a false political attack.”

Later when John McCain “embraced” Bush’s statement, an Obama spokesman replied “It is the height of hypocrisy for John McCain to deliver a lofty speech about civility and bipartisanship in the morning and then embrace George Bush’s disgraceful political attack in the afternoon. Instead of delivering meaningful change, John McCain wants to continue George Bush’s irresponsible and failed Iran policy by refusing to engage in tough, direct diplomacy like Presidents from Kennedy to Reagan have done.”

Today, Obama responded with anger and forcefulness, while criticizing Bush’s “failed” policies abroad and hammering McCain for supporting them. “They’re trying to fool you. They’re trying to scare you. And they’re not telling the truth. And the reason is they can’t win a foreign policy debate on the merits, but it’s not gonna work. It’s not gonna work this time and it’s not gonna work this year,” Obama told voters in Watertown, South Dakota. “If George Bush and John McCain want a debate about protecting the United States of America, that’s a debate I’m happy to have, anytime, any place, and that is a debate that I will win, because George Bush and John McCain have a lot to answer for,” he said.

As evidence, Obama cited what he sees as foreign policy failures implemented by the Bush Administration. “Our Iran policy is a complete failure right now and that’s the policy John McCain is running on. He has nothing to offer except the naïve and irresponsible belief that tough talk from Washington will somehow cause Iran to give up its nuclear program in support for terrorism. I’m running for president to change course, not to continue George Bush’s course,” he said to applause.

Later at a press avail, Obama was asked if he took the White House’s word that President Bush was not referring to him. “For them to suggest that somehow they weren’t aimed – who’s this “some” that they were talking about? Is this some amorphous “some”? Or is this just a straw man that they were setting up? And if so, what was the purpose of the remarks? That’s being disingenuous,” he responded.

Of Obama’s South Dakota remarks, a McCain spokesman noted, “It was remarkable to see Barack Obama’s hysterical diatribe in response to a speech in which his name wasn’t even mentioned.”

Los Angeles, CA — Sen. John McCain is set to deliver a major foreign policy address this morning where he will emphasize the need for the US to be a good world citizen and listen to world opinion if the country expects to be listened to.

“When we believe international action is necessary, whether military, economic, or diplomatic, we will try to persuade our friends that we are right. But we, in return, must be willing to be persuaded by them,” he is expected to say. “America must be a model citizen if we want others to look to us as a model. How we behave at home affects how we are perceived abroad.”

Here is a short excerpt from the prepared text (full text after jump):

In such a world, where power of all kinds is more widely and evenly distributed, the United States cannot lead by virtue of its power alone. We must be strong politically, economically, and militarily. But we must also lead by attracting others to our cause, by demonstrating once again the virtues of freedom and democracy, by defending the rules of international civilized society and by creating the new international institutions necessary to advance the peace and freedoms we cherish. Perhaps above all, leadership in today’s world means accepting and fulfilling our responsibilities as a great nation.

One of those responsibilities is to be a good and reliable ally to our fellow democracies. We cannot build an enduring peace based on freedom by ourselves, and we do not want to. We have to strengthen our global alliances as the core of a new global compact — a League of Democracies — that can harness the vast influence of the more than one hundred democratic nations around the world to advance our values and defend our shared interests.

At the heart of this new compact must be mutual respect and trust. Recall the words of our founders in the Declaration of Independence, that we pay “decent respect to the opinions of mankind.” Our great power does not mean we can do whatever we want whenever we want, nor should we assume we have all the wisdom and knowledge necessary to succeed. We need to listen to the views and respect the collective will of our democratic allies. When we believe international action is necessary, whether military, economic, or diplomatic, we will try to persuade our friends that we are right. But we, in return, must be willing to be persuaded by them.

America must be a model citizen if we want others to look to us as a model. How we behave at home affects how we are perceived abroad. We must fight the terrorists and at the same time defend the rights that are the foundation of our society. We can’t torture or treat inhumanely suspected terrorists we have captured. I believe we should close Guantanamo and work with our allies to forge a new international understanding on the disposition of dangerous detainees under our control.

There is such a thing as international good citizenship. We need to be good stewards of our planet and join with other nations to help preserve our common home. The risks of global warming have no borders. We and the other nations of the world must get serious about substantially reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years or we will hand off a much-diminished world to our grandchildren. We need a successor to the Kyoto Treaty, a cap-and-trade system that delivers the necessary environmental impact in an economically responsible manner. We Americans must lead by example and encourage the participation of the rest of the world, including most importantly, the developing economic powerhouses of China and India.

While he has previously emphasized the importance of diplomacy at times on the trail–the collective impact of the above section sends a powerful message—-an olive branch from a McCain White House to the world and veiled jabs at Bush foreign policy and the perceived damage it has done to the US relationship with it’s allies.

Also, the topics he hammers on a daily basis–Iraq and the war on terror—are pushed back into the last 1/3 of the speech . He takes a very sweeping, macro-look at the major issues facing the world, choosing to discuss AIDS and Africa, China/India, diplomacy and Latin America all before he gets to Iraq.

Though he does connect Iraq and the America as a good world citizen riff towards the end with this notable line:

“Our critics say America needs to repair its image in the world. How can they argue at the same time for the morally reprehensible abandonment of our responsibilities in Iraq?”

I will post some video excerpts after the speech.

(more…)

Senator Barack Obama was introduced by Senator Jay Rockefeller at two Ohio campaign events today, where the West Virginia senator defended Obama’s foreign policy credentials, which have recently come into question by Senator Hillary Clinton in her new TV ad that asks viewers who they would want answering the phone at the White House at 3am in the event of a crisis.

Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters traveling with the Obama campaign that he is “more qualified on national security judgments and actions” than any other candidate running - including John McCain.

At an afternoon town hall meeting in Westerville, Ohio, Obama responded to Clinton’s criticism that his foreign policy experience lies solely on the speech he gave in 2002 denouncing the war. He also criticized Clinton for not reading the National Intelligence Estimate report - something he said Senator Jay Rockefeller did read. He continued, “I don’t know what all that experience got her because I have enough experience to know that if you have a National Intelligence Estimate, and the chairman of the national, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee says, ‘you should read this - this is why I’m voting against the war,’ - that you should probably read it.”

What Obama didn’t make clear however, is that while Jay Rockefeller is the current chairman of the committee, he was not in 2002 - nor did Rockefeller vote against the resolution. The then-chairman of the Intelligence Committee did, however, and that was former Senator Bob Graham. The campaign says Obama was referring to Mr. Graham - not Mr. Rockefeller in his remarks.

Watch those remarks here:

Following Obama’s town hall, Senator Rockefeller was asked about Mrs. Clinton’s claim that she was fully briefed on the content of the NIE report. “I don’t really know what that means when you’re fully briefed. I mean, who is going to brief her?” Only senators and Intelligence staff can read the briefing, Rockefeller said. “It’s not the kind of thing that you just get briefed on,” he said.

At a town hall forum in Washington, Iowa, tonight, Senator Barack Obama defended his foreign policy credentials to voters. “Even by the standards of Washington, I have dealt more with foreign policy than let’s say Bill Clinton had when he became president, or Ronald Reagan, who was a governor at the time,” Obama said.

He continued, “I’m not relying on the conventional wisdom - I’m relying on judgments based on a lifetime of experience and my service on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and that’s why I’m confident of my ability to provide leadership on the foreign policy front.” As evidence of his qualifications, Obama offered his consistent views on the Iraq war, his opposition to the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment dealing with Iran, and his disapproval to the practices Pakistan leader, Pervez Musharraf. In the past, Obama has touted his years living abroad as a child as part of his foreign policy resume.

Tonight Senator Obama went one step further. “You could argue that there are more foreign policy experts from the Clinton administration supporting me than Senator Clinton,” he said.

And that is when the Clinton Camp responded.

Spokesman Jay Carson quickly issued a list of 83 names of former Bill Clinton advisors who are backing Hillary Clinton  (according to the Associated Press, the Obama campaign provided 47 names) , and poked fun at Obama’s word choice, saying, “I could argue that the Red Sox have won more World Series than the Yankees, but that doesn’t make it true.” His “false claims,” Carson said, raise “more questions about his own lack of experience,” a recurring theme of the Clinton campaign.

The war of words continued when Team Obama noted that the list provided by the Clinton campaign is “full of ambassadors that were fundraisers, not policy experts.” They pointed to a New York Times article, which stated, “Hillary Clinton’s inner circle consists of the senior-most figures from her husband’s second term in office….but drill down into one of Washington’s foreign-policy hives, whether the Carnegie Institution or Georgetown University, and you’re bound to hit Obama supporters.” These supporters, journalist James Traub wrote, are Clinton-types who have “decamped to Obama.”

This fight will likely continue to brew on the campaign trail before the Christmas holiday.