Obama aides attack Clinton on foreign policy

By Caren Bohan

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Hillary Clinton's foreign policy would be more of the same failed Republican approach, Barack Obama's campaign said on Thursday, as aides stepped up their attacks after losses in this week's Democratic presidential nominating race.

Clinton, who revived her struggling campaign with victories on Tuesday in closely watched contests in Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island, has been hammering away at Obama on national security, painting him as too inexperienced to handle a world crisis.

Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee and a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, has used a similar line of criticism against Obama.

Obama aides seized on the simultaneous attacks to accuse the New York senator of choosing to "align herself with Sen. McCain."

"I guess Sen. Clinton believes that the way to beat Sen. McCain in a debate is to talk like he talks, act like he acts, and vote like he votes on national security issue," Obama adviser Greg Craig told reporters on a conference call. "We believe that Democrats in the past have lost national security debates to the Republicans for these reasons."

The defeats for Obama in the hard-fought large states of Ohio and Texas on Tuesday snapped an earlier winning streak. In their aftermath, the Illinois senator expressed frustration with what he said was a "very negative" campaign Clinton had run and he vowed to hit back harder against her criticisms.

Many political analysts think a television commercial that Clinton launched focusing on national security had succeeded in raising doubts about Obama.

The ad featured sleeping children and a phone ringing at the White House as a narrator ominously warns: "It's 3 a.m., and your children are safe and asleep. But there is a phone in the White House and its ringing. Something is happening in the world."

The narrator then asks whether the person answering the White House phone is "tested" enough to keep America safe.

On the conference call, Craig said Clinton had "aligned herself" with McCain on some specific issues, such as putting too much trust in Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and supporting a legislative amendment aimed at stepping up pressure on Iran.

But the Clinton campaign shot back that such comments distorted the New York senator's record.

"Distorting Hillary's record won't address the doubts voters have about Senator Obama's readiness to be commander-in-chief," said Clinton campaign spokesman Phil Singer.

Clinton held a meeting in Washington on Thursday with top military leaders and experts, and said their support showed confidence in her ability to make important national security decisions, including those in which "lives are on the line."

The Obama campaign has derided Clinton's characterization of herself as steeped in foreign policy experience based on her years as first lady and her travels and work as a senator.

Obama adviser Susan Rice said the ability to handle that 3 a.m. crisis phone call is not something that can be acquired "merely by being married to a commander-in-chief."

(Reporting by Caren Bohan, editing by Philip Barbara)