Obama ‘delusional’?
CAMPAIGN 2008 | McCain, ex-CIA chief doubt Obama's readiness to deal with terrorists
WASHINGTON -- McCain advisers on Tuesday portrayed presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama as "extremely naive" and "delusional" when it comes to terrorist threats. Obama rebutted that the critics have no standing since they supported the Iraq war, a diversion from hunting 9/11 terrorists.
"These are the same guys who helped to engineer the distraction of the war in Iraq at a time when we could've pinned down the people who actually committed 9/11," Obama told reporters on his campaign plane. "In part because of their failed strategies, we've got bin Laden still sending out audiotapes, so I don't think they have much standing to suggest that they've learned a lot of lessons from 9/11."
(AP)
The Tuesday exchanges between Obama and the campaign of his rival, Sen. John McCain, show the sharp divide between the two when it comes to the approach the U.S. should take regarding the treatment of "enemy combatants."
The U.S. Supreme Court last week, ruling 5-4 on a case involving Guantanamo detainees, said they had the right to appeal their confinement to the courts, a decision applauded by Obama.
During a McCain campaign conference call with reporters, former CIA head James Woolsey said Obama's support of giving terrorists access to U.S. courts was an "extremely dangerous and an extremely naive approach to terrorism."
McCain senior foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann said if Obama "got that 3 a.m. phone call" -- a reference to an ad Sen. Hillary Clinton ran before the Texas and Ohio primaries questioning Obama's experience -- his response would be to "call the lawyers in the Justice Department." He also called Obama "delusional."
Scheunemann accused Obama of having a "Sept. 10" mind-set because he told ABC's Jake Tapper that the terrorists who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993 were properly arrested, convicted and imprisoned and the same should have been done for the Guantanamo prisoners.
"We have destroyed our credibility when it comes to rule of law all around the world, and given a huge boost to terrorist recruitment in countries that say, 'Look, this is how the United States treats Muslims.' So that, I think, is an example of something that was unnecessary. We could have done the exact same thing, but done it in a way that was consistent with our laws," Obama told Tapper.
Scheunemann also invoked a stereotype as he tried to make the point that terrorists are not common criminals. These terrorists, he said, were not "your run-of-the mill drug dealers on the South Side of Chicago."