Top Democratic presidential hopefuls traded their sharpest barbs yet of the White House race, as differences over Iraq burst into the open during their second televised debate.
In a string of snappy exchanges, senators Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and ex-vice presidential nominee John Edwards sparred over the initial US decision to launch a war which has now killed 3,488 US soldiers.
The three top candidates avoided the kind of gaffes which could threaten their campaigns, and long-shot candidates struggled for exposure in an event which cranked up the intensity of the marathon race.
Edwards provoked the sniping, early in the event on Sunday in New Hampshire, which hosts the first state primary election in January, accusing Clinton and Obama of not doing enough as lawmakers to bring troops home.
"It's the difference between leading and following," he said, referring to his demands for Congress to immediately use its power to cut war funding. "There is a difference between leadership and legislating."
Clinton and Obama last month voted against a new US$100 billion emergency war budget, under pressure from the very grassroots activists Edwards appeared to be courting with his debate tactics.
Obama scolded Edwards, who like Clinton was a member of the Senate in 2002 and voted to authorize US President George W. Bush to go to war in Iraq, though he has since repudiated his vote.
On a day in which the US military reported another 14 US deaths in Iraq, Edwards later acknowledged Obama -- as a way of swiping at front-runner Clinton, who again declined to say her vote to authorize war was a mistake.
"He deserves credit for being against this war from the beginning. He was right. I was wrong," Edwards said.
Clinton, who has vowed to get troops home from Iraq if she is elected, trained fire back at Bush, and Republican candidates who will hold their own New Hampshire debate today.
"This is George Bush's war. He is responsible for this war, he started the war, he mismanaged the war, he escalated the war and he refuses to end the war," Clinton said, trying to minimize differences with her rivals on Iraq.
Former British prime minister Rishi Sunak on Wednesday urged so-called middle powers to become a “poisonous shrimp” to carve out strategic economic leverage in a more turbulent global environment. Sunak drew from a metaphor by former Singaporean prime minister Lee Kuan Yew (李光耀): A big fish will eat a smaller fish, and the smaller fish will eat the shrimp. Lee made the point a year after the Asian nation’s independence in 1966 that the city-state needed to build up its defense mechanisms — like a shrimp that stings — so it would be left alone by predators. “He was thinking about what Singapore’s
POLL POSITION: Democrats criticized the timing of the raid, saying that the US justice department historically avoids public investigations within 60 days of an election Federal agents on Monday searched the home of Democratic US Representative Ilhan Omar, a startling escalation in a criminal investigation that brings renewed focus to the frequent target of White House derision in the final weeks of her re-election bid. The search of the Minnesota congresswoman’s home so close to next month’s midterm contests that would determine control of the US House and the Senate was swiftly condemned by top Democrats in Congress, who raised questions about the timing given longstanding US Department of Justice (DOJ) protocol to avoid overt investigative steps involving political candidates in the direct run-up to an
A Rhode Island pumpkin grower appears to have broken the world record for the heaviest pumpkin, with his giant squash topping the record by nearly 136kg. Ron Wallace of Greene, Rhode Island, weighed his pumpkin on Saturday at a contest in New England and is waiting for the Guinness World Records to confirm he smashed the record, set about a week earlier by a grower in England. Wallace said he has been in contact with Guinness officials who say his record is on track to be verified. “It’s truly massive, it was a pleasure to grow,” Wallace said on Monday. Guinness World Records lists
BUILDUP: The report comes as Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi boosts defense spending in the face of China’s military expansion and the North Korean threat French defence contractor Thales will establish a maintenance and operational support base in Japan in what is seen as the first such move by a foreign firm in the country, a report said yesterday. Thales chairman and CEO Patrice Caine told the Nikkei business daily that the base “will mark a milestone toward Thales’ long-term engagement in Japan.” It is believed to be the first time a foreign defense company has established a dedicated base in Japan for the maintenance and operation of Japanese defense equipment, the Nikkei said. It added that Thales might also expand its Japan-based business to
RSS