N.H. Debate: The Dems' Turn

Clinton manages to say, within just a few sentences, that she'll start the withdrawal "within 60 days" of becoming president; she doesn't see why our forces "should remain beyond, you know, today"; and we should "bring them home as quickly and responsibly as possible." What does all this mean? It's really hard to say.

We noted in September, after a debate in which the candidates were questioned by NBC's Tim Russert, that Clinton has put a number of caveats on her goal of having the troops out by the end of her first term. And Michael Dobbs, who writes the Washington Post's Fact Checker feature, has assembled some of the conditions Clinton has listed that might require a continued troop presence, such as continuing counterterrorism operations, protecting the U.S. embassy, countering Iranian influence, helping the Kurds and training the Iraqis.

We take no position on whether withdrawing the troops immediately, in stages or not at all is the best course. But we do quarrel with simplistic applause lines that mask a much more complicated position, and are thus misleading.

Clinton vs. Obama
Clinton took direct aim at Obama, her chief rival at the moment, by portraying him as a flip-flopper, and she connects fairly solidly:

Clinton: You've changed positions within three years on, you know, a range of issues that you put forth when you ran for the Senate and now you have changed. You know, you said you would vote against the Patriot Act; you came to the Senate, you voted for it. You said that you would vote against funding for the Iraq war; you came to the Senate and you voted for $300 billion of it.

Clinton is correct to say that Obama opposed the Patriot Act during his run for the U.S. Senate. She's relying on a 2003 Illinois National Organization for Women questionnaire in which Obama wrote that he would vote to "repeal the Patriot Act" or replace it with a "new, carefully crafted proposal." As for whether or not he would have voted against it when it was first proposed in 2001, Obama said in October 2004 that he wasn't sure: