Obama challenges McCain on offshore oil drilling, national security

WASHINGTON - A defiant Barack Obama challenged his Republican opponent over which presidential candidate would keep the U.S. safer, delivering a sharp rebuke to John McCain's aides who said the Democratic challenger had a naive approach toward fighting terrorism.
Obama and McCain also clashed over energy policies. McCain accused his Democratic opponent of recycling impractical ideas by supporting a tax on windfall oil company profits. Obama criticized his rival's proposed energy plan which called for an end to a federal moratorium on offshore oil drilling.
The rival camps engaged in a war of words on national security Tuesday that echoed the 2004 presidential campaign in which President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other Republicans argued that Democratic nominee John Kerry was soft on terror, a claim that resonated with voters and helped propel Bush to re-election. Democrats complained that the Republican Party was using the politics of fear.
The Republican argument proved less effective in 2006 when then Bush adviser Karl Rove said the Democrats had a pre-Sept. 11 view of the world and Republicans had a post-Sept. 11 terror attacks perspective. In November of that year, Democrats captured enough congressional seats to seize control of the House and Senate.
McCain, a longtime senator and war veteran, has touted his national security experience over that of his first-term senator rival. But Obama was not conceding any ground.
These are the same guys who helped to engineer the distraction of the war in Iraq at a time when we could have pinned down the people who actually committed 9/11," Obama told reporters aboard his campaign plane. This is the same kind of fear-mongering that got us into Iraq ... and it's exactly that failed foreign policy I want to reverse."
Obama's remarks came after McCain aides criticized the Democratic candidate for talking about using the criminal justice system to prosecute terrorists, as opposed to resorting to indefinite detention of suspects, as is the case at Guantanamo Bay.
Senator Obama is a perfect manifestation a September 10th mind-set ... He does not understand the nature of the enemies we face," McCain national security director Randy Scheunemann told reporters on a conference call, referring to the 2001 terror attacks.
Former CIA director James Woolsey, who is advising the McCain campaign, concurred, saying Obama has an extremely dangerous and extremely naive approach toward terrorism ... and toward dealing with prisoners captured overseas who have been engaged in terrorist attacks against the United States."
At issue were Obama's comments Monday in an interview with ABC News. Obama was asked how he could be sure the Bush administration's anti-terrorism policies are not crucial to protecting U.S. citizens.
Obama said the government can crack down on terrorists within the constraints of our Constitution." He mentioned Guantanamo Bay detainees, contrasting their treatment with the prosecution of the 1993 World Trade Center bombings.
Obama agreed with the Supreme Court ruling last week that detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have a constitutional right to challenge their indefinite imprisonment in U.S. civilian courts. McCain derided the ruling as one of the worst decisions in the history of this country."
The Obama campaign countered with its own conference call in which Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, and Richard Clarke, a counterterrorism official in Republican and Democratic administrations. Clark accused the McCain campaign of using old, tired tactics ... to, frankly, frighten Americans."
McCain on Tuesday was promoting his energy plan in Texas, a major oil producing state that is Bush's home.
The key to his energy plan is a call to lift the federal ban on offshore oil and gas exploration, a move opposed by Democrats and environmentalists but potentially appealing to Americans weary of soaring gasoline prices.
Echoing McCain's call, Bush planned to make a renewed push Wednesday to get Congress to end the long-standing ban on offshore oil and gas drilling.
McCain's proposal to tap offshore reserves was a reversal from his position in his 2000 bid for the Republican presidential nomination, when he said he favored the existing ban.
Obama was quick to criticize McCain for switching positions on offshore drilling. I think he continues to find himself being pushed further and further to the right in ways that in my mind don't show a lot of leadership," he said.
Obama also said there is no way that allowing offshore drilling would lower gas prices right now. At best you are looking at five years or more down the road."
McCain reserved his harshest words for Obama's proposal to tax the windfall profits of some of the biggest U.S. oil companies.
If that plan sounds familiar, it's because that was President Carter's big idea, too," he said.
But on May 5, campaigning in North Carolina, McCain appeared to say he was willing to consider the same proposal, saying he'd be glad to look" at the windfall profits tax.
Jill Hazelbaker, McCain's communications director said, McCain hasn't changed his mind. He said he is willing to look at all ideas," she said.
McCain also called for greater use of nuclear power, as well as alternative energy sources and greater conservation measures.
While McCain's new proposal on offshore exploration might entice support of hard-pressed consumers who are struggling with record gasoline prices, the benefits of his plan would not be realized for years, given the long lead time needed to bring new supplies on line. And critics have said it is unlikely any oil recovered from those regions would do much to offset U.S. dependence on imports.
Democrats, as well as some Republican senators from coastal states, have opposed lifting the drilling prohibitions, fearful that energy development could harm tourism and raise the risk of oil spills on beaches.
Obama is calling for conservation and an intensive search for alternative energy supplies that could not only ease the price crunch but begin lowering emissions of the greenhouse gases held responsible for global warming. Those programs also will be slow to change American dependence on imported oil.