    
Tonya
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Username: Tonya
Post Number: 4030
Registered: 07-2006
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, January 15, 2007 - 02:56 pm: | 
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HILL JABS AT JOHN
TAKES HER FIRST SHOT VS. AN '08 PREZ FOE
By JOHN MAZOR and GEOFF EARLE
SHOW OF HANDS: Presidential hopeful John Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, join hands with Martin Luther King III yesterday inside Harlem's Riverside Church.
January 15, 2007 -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton last night ripped into 2008 White House contender John Edwards - her first direct assault on any of her potential Democratic presidential rivals.
Clinton's surprising broadside came just hours after Edwards, in Harlem, delivered a sharp condemnation - clearly aimed at Clinton, although he didn't mention her by name - against those who fail to "speak out" against the war in Iraq.
"Silence is betrayal, and I believe it is a betrayal not to speak out against the escalation of the war in Iraq," Edwards told a crowd at Manhattan's Riverside Church, where Martin Luther King had declared his opposition to the Vietnam War.
"If you're in Congress and you know that this war is going in the wrong direction . . . it is no longer OK to study your options and keep your own private counsel," he said.
"Silence is betrayal. Speak out and stop this escalation now."
Edwards' hit on the front-runner for the Democratic nomination was not lost on the Clinton camp, which sees criticism from the Iraq war opponents as one of the major threats to her expected campaign for the presidential nomination.
"In 2004, John Edwards used to constantly brag about running a positive campaign. Today, he has unfortunately chosen to open his campaign with political attacks on Democrats who are fighting the Bush administration's Iraq policy," said Clinton adviser Howard Wolfson.
It is the first time that Clinton has slammed one of her Democratic rivals by name and comes a full year before the first presidential contests in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Clinton's full-blown response to Edwards signals that her team considers him a top-tier threat. He has been touring the country ever since his 2004 defeat as Sen. John Kerry's vice-presidential running mate.
The former North Carolina senator has topped polls in Iowa, home of the first-in-the-nation caucuses.
Clinton now faces a double-barreled threat from two charismatic contenders, Edwards and Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.).
Edwards has recanted his 2002 vote for the resolution authorizing the Iraq war. Clinton has criticized the administration's handling of the war without emphatically denouncing the war itself - much to the chagrin of the anti-war left.
Clinton also voted for the war resolution and has long refused to say that was a mistake.
Last month, in an appearance on the "Today" show, Clinton went farther she ever had, saying, "Obviously, if we knew then what we know now, there wouldn't have been a vote, and I certainly wouldn't have voted that way."
Additional reporting by Maggie Haberman
john.mazor@nypost.com
http://www.nypost.com/seven/01152007/news/nationalnews/hill_jabs_at_john_nationa lnews_john_mazor_and_geoff_earle.htm
Related link NYT:
January 15, 2007, 11:15 am
2008 Like It’s Today: Edwards-Clinton New York Rumble
By Sarah Wheaton
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/01/15/2008-like-its-today-edwards-clinto n-new-york-rumble/ |
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