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Obama, Clinton clash in YouTube debate
By Reuters, July 24, 08:35
Hillary Clinton pounced on rival Barack Obama on Monday for his willingness to meet with some troublesome world leaders during a Democratic US presidential debate starring a parade of questions posed through YouTube videos.
The debate featured video questions submitted from around the world via the Internet, from workers in Darfur refugee camps and an animated snowman worried about global warming to a strumming guitarist who sang his question about whether Democrats would raise taxes.
It was highlighted by a clash between the top 2008 Democratic contenders after Obama said he would be willing to meet with leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea. The Bush administration considers the nations regional troublemakers.
Mr Obama, who leads Democrats in fund raising and is looking to cut Ms Clinton's lead in polls, said it was important to search for areas "where we can potentially move forward" and added, "I think it's a disgrace that we have not spoken to them."
Ms Clinton, the New York senator, disagreed, saying such meetings could be used as propaganda purposes.
"Certainly, we're not going to just have our president meet with Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez and you know, the president of North Korea, Iran and Syria, until we know better what the way forward would be," she said.
The format was designed to force candidates to drop their rehearsed answers and sound bites. It sparked lively exchanges between all eight Democratic candidates on Iraq and diplomacy, and an extended discussion of race and gender involving Mr Obama and Ms Clinton.
Asked if Muslim leaders in the Middle East would be able to negotiate and work with a woman, Ms Clinton said that after meeting various foreign leaders as first lady to President Bill Clinton in the 1990s: "There isn't much doubt in anyone's mind that I can be taken seriously."
IRAQ CHALLENGES
Ms Clinton said she was proud to be running as a woman, and Mr Obama, an Illinois senator who would be the first black president, said Americans were ready to go beyond racial divisions.
"I couldn't run as anything other than a woman," Ms Clinton said. "I'm excited that I may be able finally to break that hardest of all glass ceilings."
The meeting on the campus of the Citadel military college in Charleston, South Carolina, was the fourth for Democrats and comes six months before the first votes in the 2008 nominating campaign.
South Carolina, one of the first states to vote in the 2008 nominating contest, is scheduled to hold its Democratic primary along with Florida on January 29, 2008, shortly after Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire.
Clinton leads the Democratic field in national polls and in recent polls in South Carolina. Mr Obama, an early opponent of the Iraq war, questioned her Senate vote to authorize the war in 2002.
"The time for us to ask how we were going to get out of Iraq was before we got in," he said.
Told by a voter that Democrats were expected to end the war after they won power in Congress in the 2006 election, anti-war Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich said party members were unwilling to take the politically risky move of cutting off war funding.
"Yes, it is politics. The Democrats have failed the American people," he said.
More than 2,000 video questions were posted on YouTube's site for the debate. CNN editors used more than 30 of them.
The candidates also submitted their own videos. They ranged from Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut's joking reference to his white hair to Senator John Edwards' attempt to lay to rest the media hoopla over his $400 haircut.
Mr Edwards's video used the soundtrack from the musical "Hair" over a montage of photos of war in Iraq and Hurricane Katrina. "What Really Matters? You Choose" said the closing card.
Clinton Blasts President Bush's Foreign Policy
(CBS/AP) DECORAH, Iowa Hillary Rodham Clinton on Sunday criticized President Bush's foreign policy, and said if she were president she would do things differently, including beginning diplomatic talks with supposed enemies and sending envoys throughout the world.
"I would begin diplomatic discussions with those countries with whom we have differences, to try to figure out what is the depth of those differences," said Clinton, who spoke to about 1,000 people at Luther College in Decorah in northeastern Iowa.
"I think it is a terrible mistake for our president to say he will not talk with bad people. You don't make peace with your friends -- you have to do the hard work of dealing with people you don't agree with," said Clinton, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination.
Opening talks with other countries doesn't mean the U.S. won't defend its interests whenever necessary, she said, "but what it means is that we should discuss other routes before we decide we're going to pursue military options.
"We cannot provide the leadership we need unless we are willing to try engage the other countries," she said,
She dished out plenty of criticism about the war in Iraq, and said when it comes to Iran, the U.S. needs to engage those with the real power -- the clerics.
Of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad she said: "He's like their front man, he's like their puppet. He goes out and gets people agitated and says things that everybody responds to, but he's not making the decisions. The decisions are being made within the alternative government of these clerics.
"We have no idea of how these people think, we have no contact with them," Clinton said, arguing that she's advocated for years to have a process of diplomacy with Iran.
"If we ever have to use force against any country, it should be seen as an action of last resort, not first resort," she said
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I really cannot stand Hilary Clinton, she is a liar and a hypocrite. Just figures she would be the front runner in the democratic race. If she were to become president I think I will call it quits on America and simply leave to another country