Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton sharpened her attacks on Tuesday on rival Barack Obama's experience, a day after a poll showed her falling slightly behind him in Iowa. Six weeks before Iowa kicks off the state-by-state battle for the 2008 Democratic nomination, Clinton questioned Obama's claim that living in a foreign country as a youth helped shape his world view and contribute to his experience. "Voters will judge whether living in a foreign country at the age of 10 prepares one to face the big, complex international challenges the next president will face," Clinton said during a campaign stop in Shenandoah, Iowa. "I think we need a president with more experience than that," said Clinton, who has repeatedly touted her own experience as first lady and questioned the readiness for the White House of the first-term senator from Illinois.
Obama said in Iowa on Monday that his four years living in Indonesia as a child contributed to his knowledge of the world and how people live around the globe. "If you don't understand these cultures then it's very hard for you to make good foreign policy decisions. Foreign policy is all about judgment," he said.
Obama's campaign fired back, saying experience was no substitute for judgment and attacking Clinton's votes to authorize military action in Iraq in 2003 and side with President George W. Bush recently in labeling an Iranian military unit a terrorist group.
Obama spokesman Bill Burton said Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also spent time in the White House and traveled heavily. "But along with Hillary Clinton they led us into the worst foreign policy disaster in a generation and are now giving George Bush the benefit of the doubt on Iran," he said.
