Obama Vs. Bill Clinton

Since the Iowa Caucuses, and the New Hampshire Primary, the two top democratic contenders, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and junior Sen. Barack Obama have turned up the heat in the lead up to Nevada and South Carolina. Recently, Obama's previous stance on the Iraq War has been called under question by the Clinton Campaign amidst media avoidance.

Sen. Barack Obama claimed that President Clinton "made several misleading statements about my record" on Iraq. Unfortunately for Obama, everything President Clinton said was true:

It is wrong that Senator Obama got to go through 15 debates trumpeting his superior judgment and how he has been against the war every year, enumerating the years, and never got asked one time -- not once -- well, how could you say that when you said in 2004 you didn't know how you would have voted on the resolution, you said in 2004 there was no difference between you and George Bush on the war, and you took that speech you're now running on off your Web site in 2004, and there is no difference in your voting record and Hillary's ever since.

In 2004, Sen. Obama said, "I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports. What would I have done? I don't know. What I know is that from my vantage point the case was not made," when asked about Senators Kerry and Edwards' votes on the Iraq War.

On July 27th 2004, Sen. Obama also said there was little difference between his position and George Bush's position on Iraq. In a meeting with Chicago Tribune reporters at the Democratic National Convention, Obama said, "On Iraq, on paper, there's not as much difference, I think, between the Bush Administration and a Kerry Administration as there would have been a year ago.... There's not much of a difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage."

And while running for Senate, Sen. Obama in October of 2002, acknowledged that he took his anti-war speech off his campaign website, calling it "dated", adding that "the speech was dated once the formal phase of the war was over, and my staff's desire to continually provide fresh news clips".

Finally, Sen. Obama and Hillary have almost identical voting records on Iraq. According to ABC News, in May 17th of this year, Obama's voting record in his 2 years in Congress there was only one Iraq related vote on which he differed with Sen. Clinton: the confirmation of General Casey to be Chief of Staff of the Army, which Obama voted for and Clinton voted against.

It is important to know where our candidates stand on the issues, and that the candidates we support have a record that can give us an idea as to what kind of president they would be. After having a president who avoids giving answers that make since in response to tough questions, we need our next president to be more straightforward.