COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Sen. Barack Obama fired back at Sen. John McCain this morning after the Arizona Republican suggested Obama was unaware that al-Qaeda had been causing trouble in Iraq. Speaking in Tyler, Texas, McCain cast Obama as dangerously clueless for suggesting during last night's debate with Sen. Hilllary Rodham Clinton that he would consider redeploying U.S. troops to Iraq under certain conditions, including if al-Qaeda returned to establish a base of operations there. Or, as moderator Tim Russert put it, if "al-Qaeda resurges and Iraq goes to hell."
"I have some news," McCain said a rally this morning. "Al-Qaeda is in Iraq. Al-Qaeda is called al-Qaeda in Iraq. My friends, if we left, they wouldn't be establishing a base...they would be taking a country. I will not allow that to happen my friends. I will not surrender. I will not surrender to al-Qaeda."
Speaking to 7,000 voters at Ohio State University, Obama answered McCain's mocking tone with his own. "McCain thought that he could make a clever point by saying , "Well let me give you some news Barack, al-Qaeda IS in Iraq.' Like I wasn't reading the papers, like I didn't know what was going on. I said, 'well first of all I DO know that al-Qaeda is in Iraq , that's why I've said we should continue to strike al-Qaeda targets."
He was just getting warmed up. Obama's foreign policy bona fides, after all, would likely emerge as a prime Republican line of attack in the general election, should the Illinois senator become the Democratic nominee.
"I have some news for John McCain, and that is that there was no such thing as al-Qaeda in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade Iraq," Obama said, as the crowd roared. "I've got some news for John McCain! He took us into a war along with George Bush that should have never been authorized and should have never been waged. They took their eye off the people who were responsible for 9/11, and that would be al-Qaeda in Afghanistan that is stronger now than at any time since 2001."
"I've been paying attention, John McCain," Obama continued, the cheers growing so loud that the audience could hardly make out the words. "That's the news. So John McCain may like to say he wants to follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell, but so far all he's done is follow George Bush into a misguided war in Iraq that's cost us thousands of lives and billions of dollars...I respect John McCain but he's tied to the politics of the past -- we are about the policies of the future! Hes the party of yesterday -- we want to be the party of tomorrow."