Obama Aide: "He ain't ready!"

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March 6, 2008, 10:46 am

Obama Aide: Neither Candidate Ready for 3 a.m. Call

By Kate Phillips

Updated As Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton prepares for an afternoon news conference here in Washington, where she is to be surrounded by “military officers,” her campaign has put up a YouTube moment that you can bet will be replayed over and over.

In it, Susan Rice, a foreign policy adviser to Senator Barack Obama, discusses the foreign policy credentials of both Democrats against the tableau of Mrs. Clinton’s 3 a.m. phone call advertisement about who would be best prepared for an international crisis. (While your children are safely asleep.)

“Clinton hasn’t had to answer the phone at three o’clock in the morning and yet she attacked Barack Obama for not being ready,'’ Ms. Rice said. “They’re both not ready to have that 3 a.m. phone call.” (I couldn't have said it better myself. )

(The exit polls from Tuesday in Ohio and Texas showed that voters favored her more as commander-in-chief. Perhaps her 3 a.m. ad broadcast only in Texas but widely publicized helped to sway voters. Mr. Obama quickly released a response ad last week.)

[update: Readers have been asking (we hear you!) for the full context of Ms. Rice’s remarks. Here’s a transcript from her appearance on Tucker Carlson’s show on MSNBC in terms of what was asked and said about the 3 a.m. phone call.

Mr. Carlson: So Hillary Clinton runs this ad, the famous red phone ad, that says when the phone rings at 3 o’clock in the morning, you know, who do you trust to make those snap decisions that could hold all of our lives in the balance? And the Obama campaign, I thought very wisely, came back and said, name one that you — you know name a situation where you’ve judged a foreign policy crisis, and she couldn’t.

I’m going to ask the same question to you. Where has — Barack Obama been in a position where he has to make those kinds of decisions?

Ms. Rice: He hasn’t and he hasn’t claimed that he’s been in a position to have to answer the phone at 3 o’clock in the morning in a crisis situation. That’s the difference between the two of them. Hillary Clinton hasn’t had to answer the phone at 3 o’clock in the morning. And yet she attacked Barack Obama for not being ready. They’re both not ready to have that 3:00 a.m. phone call.

The question is and what Barack Obama raised is, when that phone call is received for each of them for the first time, who’s going to make the right judgment? Who is going to make the right decision?

On the critical foreign policy issues of the day, whether it was a decision to go to war in Iraq or the decision to give President Bush the benefit of the doubt and beat the drums of war with Iran, Hillary Clinton has made the same wrong judgment as John McCain and George W. Bush. Barack Obama has made a very different judgment.

So neither one of them, and nor John McCain for that matter, have had that 3 o’clock phone call that others have had. And I think we have to be honest about that.

NY TIMES