Clinton Heckled at DNC Speech

Earlier today, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) was heckled at the DNC winter meeting by audience members who are unhappy with her stance on the war in Iraq.

Clinton, who voted in 2002 to give President Bush the right to use force to overthrow the Saddam Hussein regime, spoke today of the non-binding resolution that will appear before the Senate next week as the first time the Democrats will "tell the president, 'no!'"

However, her speech was nearly derailed by a handful of guests in attendance shouting "make it binding!" and "how about you bring them home."

Moments later, Clinton promised that, if the war hasn't ended by 2009 then "as president" she would do so.

Speaking on oil company profits, Clinton said "I want to take those profits, and I want to put them into a strategic energy fund."

"I am not running for president to put band aids on our problems," Clinton said.
Star rival Barack Obama pledged to restore hope to cynical politics as Democratic White House hopefuls traded the first blows of the 2008 campaign.

The two senators, along with also-favored former vice presidential nominee John Edwards and a host of long shots, made dueling speeches in their first serious head-to-head test of a potentially historic race.

"I want to be very clear about this: If I had been president in October 2002, I would not have started this war," said Clinton, already under pressure after refusing to publicly admit her vote for the war was a mistake.

"If we in Congress don't end this war before January 2009, as president, I will," said the former first lady, who is battling to become America's first woman president.

Obama, on his own historic quest to become the first black president, offered Democrats a vision of "hope" and a new brand of politics, purged of "small and timid, calculating and cautious" modern-day taints.

"It is a serious moment for America. The American people understand that; they are in sober mood," said Obama, 45, a first-term senator who shot to fame with an electrifying speech in the 2004 Democratic convention.

"We've got 130,000 Americans fighting halfway across the world in a war that should have never been waged, led by leaders who have no plan to end it.

"We don't have time to be cynical. We don't have time," said Obama, who opposed the war from the start, unlike Clinton and Edwards, who has since disavowed his vote to authorize the war.

Eleven months before crucial first nominating conventions in states like Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire, hundreds of buoyant Democratic activists fired up by their capture of Congress waved campaign signs and cheered wildly.

Other candidates who addressed the meeting included outsiders Senator Christopher Dodd, Congressman Dennis Kucinich and retired general Wesley Clark.

Senator Joseph Biden, who stumbled into a race row on the day he announced his campaign this week, was due to give a speech on Saturday, along with Bill Richardson, New Mexico's governor and a former US ambassador to the United Nations.

Rank outsiders, such as former Alaska senator Mike Gravel and ex-governor of Iowa Tom Vilsack, will also address the audience on the second day of the conference.

For Transcript of Clinton speech:
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2007/Hillary_heckled_at_DNC_0202.html

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