Monday, November 19, 2007

Obama's exchange on immigration and terror in Iowa (video)

Cameron's Corner-FOX News, with video (01:42):
No one could accuse the Obama campaign of planting questions at town hall meetings after hearing a 63-year-old Iowa farmer drill Obama at a Grundy Center event Sunday.
Obama called on Jane Svoboda near the end of his town hall meeting when she asked him why he hadn’t talked much about terrorism, the single biggest threat to the nation, as well as immigration. She asked for specifics - including his position on drivers licenses for illegal immigrants (which he did not answer).

What followed was a back and forth between the two. Svoboda was clearly was unsatisfied with Obama’s determination that there were 1.3 billion Muslims who are not hostile, but are likely to sympathize with anti-American sentiment because of bad foreign policy decisions by the US government.

She wondered how Obama would catch the jihadist Muslims if we pull troops out of Iraq and argued that Muslim factions collaborate with each other - so there are bad guys in Iraq who were likely involved in the destruction of the twin towers.

Obama heatedly informed Svoboda the assumption that Iraq was involved in plotting 9/11 was wrong. His irritation over this issue hinted at a broader frustration with Republican use of the issue to portray Democrats as weaker on issues on national security.

Here is some of the exchange:

After the event, Svoboda told a gaggle of press that the candidate didn’t answer all of her questions and that he didn’t have the experience to be president.

No Democrat running, in Svoboda’s opinion, has strong national security credentials. But, she applauded him at the event’s conclusion and said he did “a good job.”

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