N.H. Debate: The Dems' Turn

Obama: I like to think that, had I been in the Senate, I would have cast the second vote against the Patriot Act. ... But this is how much I admire Russ Feingold: I can't guarantee it. I say that I would have voted against the Patriot Act. But I wasn't there in the pressure of that moment – so shortly after Sept. 11 and with anthrax being mailed into Capitol Hill.

(Feingold's was the lone Senate vote against the USA Patriot Act in 2001.)

When it came time to reauthorize the law in 2005, though, Obama voted in favor of it. He started out opposing it: In December 2005, then-Senate majority leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) brought the bill up for a vote, and Obama said on the Senate floor that he would vote against ending debate – a position equivalent to declaring a lack of support for the measure. He followed through and voted against the motion, and the Patriot Act reauthorization bill sat dormant until 2006. Then in February of that year, Obama said on the floor that he would support the Patriot Act's reauthorization. When Frist brought the bill to the floor again in March 2006, Obama both voted for cloture and for the Patriot Act reauthorization conference report, sending the bill to the president. He also later supported a bill with additional amendments to the Patriot Act, including some civil liberties protections.

Clinton, by the way, followed exactly the same path on the 2005 bill, from speaking in opposition to voting for it.

Clinton vs. Obama, Part II
Update, Jan. 7: We did not include the following section in the story when we posted it last night because we were promised additional information by the Obama campaign. We now have that material and can assess the charge by Clinton.

The second part of Clinton's quote in the section above, which tars Obama with flip-flopping on the war in Iraq, refers to his position on an $87 billion war funding supplemental bill that came to a vote in 2003. In a speech to the New Trier Democratic Party in Illinois in November of that year, he said he would have voted against it. Specifically, he told the crowd: