Morning Update: Gentler Sparring on Iraq
The last two remaining Democratic candidates took the stage in Los Angeles Thursday night for their final debate before Super Tuesday. Though the atmosphere was friendlier than it was in the last Democratic debate, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) still detailed their differences on policy issues. As she has done throughout her campaign, Clinton defended her vote in favor of the 2002 resolution authorizing the war in Iraq. Obama, who opposed the war in 2002 but was not yet a U.S. senator, said his position would be more defensible against a Republican candidate in the general election.
Clinton also had to explain her vote against the 2002 Levin amendment that would have required President Bush to report to Congress on the UN weapons inspections in Iraq before taking military action. She said the amendment “suggested that the United States would subordinate whatever our judgment might be going forward to the United Nations Security Council.”
Obama said Sen. John McCain’s assertion that the United States may be in Iraq for 100 years “indicates a profound lack of understanding that we’ve got a whole host of global threats out there,” naming Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and China. He also said the United States has been “neglecting” foreign policy toward Latin America.
Obama said Clinton also revisited a controversial topic from earlier in the campaign. “I don’t think the president should put the prestige of the presidency on the line in the first year, to have meetings without preconditions with five of the worst dictators in the world,” Clinton said soon after the debate began. Clinton criticized Obama as naive when he said in a July 2007 debate that he would hold diplomatic meetings with Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea without preconditions.
Obama Thursday night responded to Clinton’s criticism, saying that in Iran, for example, the last National Intelligence Estimate “suggested that if we are meeting with them, talking to them, and offering them both carrots and sticks, they are more likely to change their behavior.”
Immigration: Obama called efforts to attribute African-American unemployment to immigration “scapegoating.” Both candidates said they would “crack down” on employers exploiting immigrant workers, but neither explained what exactly such a crackdown would entail. Clinton called Republican talk of “deporting people, rounding them up” impractical.
Debate also returned to the issue of drivers licenses for illegal immigrants, a policy which Obama favors and Clinton opposes. Clinton said drivers licenses could put illegal immigrants “at risk, because that is clear evidence that they are not here legally.” Obama called it a “public safety” issue.
