I’ve been debating whether to treat this exchange between a Hillary surrogate and an Obama surrogate as a big deal or not.
In Obama’s favor, Hillary’s campaign is taking a few Obama comments from the past few years – mostly declining to criticize John Kerry and John Edwards for their votes for the Iraq war – and trying to contend that the then-Illinois state senator equivocated, or hasn’t steadfastly opposed the war. It’s a stretch.
In Hillary’s favor, at this point there really isn’t a whole lot of daylight between her position and Obama’s on Iraq, and as Mark Penn argues, their votes have been essentially the same. And is Obama’s entire contrast with Hillary going to be based on comments he made back in 2002? Does he get the nomination simply because he was a pessimist back then?
Dan Balz’s account seems to indicate that Penn threw the first “punch,” and Obama’s campaign strategist, David Axlerod, accused Penn of making a “not an honest statement.”
One last thought – did the New York Times miss this story entirely? Did they not send anyone to this particular forum at Harvard University?