OBAMA: There just one thing that I wanted to…
WILLIAMS: Go ahead, Senator Obama.Thirty seconds each, Senator Obama and Clinton.
OBAMA: Very briefly, because I think this shows you how this administration has failed when it comes to our veterans.I went to Walter Reed to talk to the wounded warriors who had come back to discover that they were still paying for their meals and their phone calls while in Walter Reed, while rehabbing, which I could not believe. And I was able to gain the cooperation of a Republican- controlled Senate at the time and pass a bill that would eliminate that.But that indicates the callousness with which we are often treating our veterans. That has to stop.
WILLIAMS: Well, I think that we have to do everything necessary to help these returning veterans get the health care and the support that they need.And this new signature wound called traumatic brain injury is something that I am really upset about, because we’ve only begun to recognize it and diagnose it.
CLINTON: And, John, I was able to pass legislation to begin to provide the physical and mental evaluations so that we could begin to treat this.And, you know, we have 1,200 people in Nevada who sign up to join the military every year. They’re now going to be getting these exams because we’ve got to track what happens to young men and women when they go into the military, then provide the services for them.
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WILLIAMS: . . . Question for Senator Clinton. In 2006, you railed against Karl Rove and the Republicans for playing what you called the fear card.
But on the eve of the New Hampshire primary, you said this: “I don’t think it was by accident that al Qaeda decided to test the new prime minister, Gordon Brown, immediately. They watch our elections as closely as we do, maybe more than some of our fellow citizens do. They play our, you know, allies. They do everything they can to undermine security in the world. So let’s not forget you’re hiring a president, not just to do what a candidate says he or she wants to do in an election. You’re hiring a president to be there when the chips were down.”
You were suggesting, it’s been suggested that you would be a better president to deal with a possible terrorist attack than, perhaps, Senator Obama.
CLINTON: Well, what I said is what you quoted, and I’m not going to characterize it, but it is the fact. You know, the fact is that we face a very dangerous adversary, and to forget that or to brush it aside, I think, is a mistake.So I do feel that the next president has to be prepared because we are up against a relentless enemy. And they will take advantage of us. They will certainly, as they have over the last several years, continue their attacks against our friends and allies around the world.You know, we haven’t talked as much about homeland security as I think is necessary in this campaign. Maybe I feel it acutely because I do represent New York.
But the highest and greatest duty of the president of the United States is to protect and defend our country. And at the end of the day, voters have to make that decision, among all of us, Democrats and Republicans, who are vying for the votes.
Because it is a critical question. It always is. There are, you know, reasons going back in our history why that is so.But in this time, in this period, where we’re going to have to repair a lot of the frayed relationships coming out of the Bush administration, where we’re going to have to summon the world to a concerted effort to quell the threat of terrorism, to root them out wherever they are, it’s going to be one of the biggest jobs facing our next president.
And I feel prepared and ready to take on what is a daunting but necessary responsibility.
WILLIAMS: Senator Obama, if you look just outside where we are tonight, they’re building 40,000 new hotel rooms in this city. National security is never far from their minds in Las Vegas, either.You are fond of saying you won’t use 9/11 as a kind of hook.
WILLIAMS: Do you think some of that goes on in both parties?
OBAMA: Well, I think there’s no doubt that we’ve been dominated by a politics of fear since 9/11. Now, some of that’s understandable. We have real enemies out there. The tragedy in New York was a trauma to the country that it is going to take a long time for us to work out.
