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Iraq

Noam, I agree. That was brutal. I think a lot of political reporters feel like the Iraq debate has more or less been hashed out--Hillary did a great job of "repositioning" herself over 2006 and 2007, etc., and has issued her explanation/excuse about the Senate resolution ad nauseam. But for many February 5 voters, especially those presumably watching closely in California tonight, that might have been the closest look they've had at the two candidates on this topic. And I do not think it went well for Hillary.

It certainly didn't help that Wolf Blitzer rephrased her response as an admission that she was "naive" about whether Bush was determined to go to war.

Update: It's notable that Hillary was less aggressive in challenging Obama's anti-war cred than she has been in the past. After spending a few minutes on the defensive mired in the details of 2002 and 2003, she came back by quickly noting that beyond Obama's famous speech, "when it came to the Senate we had the same policy."

And that was it. No mention of such "fairy tale" complaints as the speech disappearing from his website, or his allegedly qualified comments about the war in summer 2004. I suspect the Clinton camp decided that line of attack was backfiring.

--Michael Crowley