Fellow Dems lay into Obama

Sen. Barack Obama accused fellow Democratic presidential candidates Sunday of trying to score cheap political points by criticizing his foreign policy inexperience, pointing out the "conventional wisdom" some of them used is what led to the Iraq war.

Sen. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, avoided direct shots when her opponents were given the chance to tee off on her electability and was able to address the issue head-on.

"We know how to win," said Clinton, in an apparent reference to her husband, former President Bill Clinton. "I've taken them on, and we've beaten them. ... The idea that you're going to escape the Republican attack machine and not have high negatives by the time they're through with you" is missing the past 20 years of American politics.

Obama and Clinton each got to address the chief criticisms aimed at them during a Sunday morning debate carried on ABC 7 from the key early state of Iowa, where those two and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards are tied in the polls.

Illinois' junior senator has been battered by weeks of chatter after his declarations, among others, that he would send the military into Pakistan if Gen. Pervez Musharraf failed to act on specific information about terrorists and would meet one-on-one with dictators hostile to the United States.

That continued Sunday as Delaware Sen. Joe Biden stood by his previous statement that the 46-year-old Obama isn't ready to be president, and Edwards and Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd said presidential candidates shouldn't engage in talk about hypothetical questions on foreign policy. And Clinton spelled out why it's considered a bad idea to meet with dictators.

"I do not think that a president should give away the bargaining chip of a personal meeting with any leader unless you know what you are going to get out of that," Clinton said.

Obama, however, fired back against his rivals on two fronts.

"This is part of what I think Americans get frustrated about in politics where we have gamesmanship and we manufacture issues and controversies instead of talking about the serious problems that we have," Obama said.

Later, Obama, who opposed the Iraq war, pointed out that conventional wisdom is what led some of his opponents to give President Bush the authority to go to war in Iraq. Sens. Clinton, Edwards, Dodd and Biden voted to authorize the war in October 2003, with all now saying they regret giving Bush that power.

While Obama had to fend off continued attacks on foreign policy matters, Clinton's foes didn't directly attack her electability in a general election when that topic came up.

Obama, running a campaign based on a "new kind of politics," instead struck a positive note when asked about Clinton's high level of negatives among the public, saying simply: "We're going to need someone who can break out of" the political patterns of the past 20 years.

Biden talked about the need to keep some U.S. troops in Iraq even after ending the war to avoid having to go back. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson disagreed, arguing his plan to get the troops home by December is viable.

Edwards said it would take nine months to a year to get out of Iraq. "The differences between all of us are very small compared to the differences between us and the Republican candidates, who, best as I can tell, are George Bush on steroids," Edwards said.

Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich tried to make light of the fact that he didn't get to talk much during the 90-minute debate. When asked about the power of prayer, former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel said he's more about the power of "love."

While there already have been five Democratic debates, Obama made news Saturday when his campaign said he'd only do eight more during the primary campaign.