Democratic presidential contenders Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama tangled over the Iraq war and outreach to America's adversaries during a novel TV debate last night that stretched the boundaries of new and old media.
Opening a new chapter in the digital political age, the candidates answered prerecorded video questions that had been submitted online by thousands of ordinary voters. While the format of the event might have overshadowed its substance, Senator Obama of Illinois used it to attack Clinton over the consequences of her 2002 Senate vote to authorize the use of U.S. military force in Iraq.
"The time for us to ask how we were going to get out of Iraq was before we went in. And that is something that too many of us failed to do," Obama said, to audience applause, after Clinton called for more detailed Pentagon planning for a U.S. troop pullout.
But Obama, perhaps highlighting his greatest vulnerability - inexperience in government - appeared to slip when he said he would be willing, during his first year as president, to hold separate, unconditional, face-to-face talks with the leaders of North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Syria and Venezuela.
Clinton pounced. She said she wouldn't promise talks with leaders of those countries without knowing first what their intentions were.
"I don't want to be used for propaganda purposes. I don't want to make a situation even worse," the New York senator said.
The exchange, a rare confrontation between the early front-runners in the Democratic contest, highlighted a two-hour-plus forum co-sponsored by CNN and Google Inc.'s YouTube Web site.
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