Mark Udall Tries to Distance Himself from an Imaginary Obama Ground-War Plan, Laughter Ensues

https://youtube.com/watch?v=VRCONhXufwg

A CNN panel couldn’t help but chuckle at Senator Mark Udall’s reaction to President Obama’s Wednesday night speech on the Islamic State, with the embattled Colorado Democrat expressing opposition to an Iraq strategy the White House has never supported.

Locked in a close reelection fight, against Colorado Republican congressman Cory Gardner, Udall has taken pains to distance himself from an increasingly unpopular Obama. So after the president’s speech, the senator asserted that “any U.S. military role beyond air strikes must be approved by Congress” and that he “will not give this president a blank check to begin another land war in Iraq.”

But President Obama has consistently rejected plans to send conventional ground forces to Iraq, instead promising only to expand an air campaign and send small numbers of non-combat advisers.

“That’s a Democratic senator essentially getting in the face of a Democratic president who has said he’s not going to put boots on the ground,” CNN’s John King said Thursday morning.

“Mark Udall has been trying so hard to run away from the president on so many things,” analyst Peter Hamby said. “The other day in a debate he said, ‘I am the senator that the White House fears most, when they see me marching across the White House lawn.’”

“That is hilariously wrong,” he laughed.

“Poppycock, I believe is the technical term,” King agreed.

The Real Clear Politics poll average gives Udall a slim, three-point lead over Gardner.