WASHINGTON (AFP) — Presumptive Republican nominee John McCain Wednesday branded Barack Obama "naive," in a pre-emptive strike designed to paint his possible Democratic White House rival as a national security novice.
The charge signalled that Senator McCain, a 71-year-old former navy pilot, Vietnam prisoner of war, and Iraq hawk, will try to frame any general election clash as a test of Obama's commander-in-chief credentials in a time of war.
Obama's campaign quickly replied, and in another harbinger of a possible Obama-McCain election showdown, linked McCain to what Democrats see as President George W. Bush's disastrous foreign policy legacy.
McCain zeroed in on a speech by Obama in August in which he said he would be prepared to strike Al-Qaeda on Pakistani territory if Islamabad would not respond to actionable intelligence.
"Well, the best idea is to not broadcast what you're going to do. That's naive," McCain told reporters in Columbus, Ohio.
"You don't broadcast that you are going to bomb a country that is a sovereign nation and that you are dependent on ... in the struggle against (the) Taliban and the sanctuaries which they hold."
On Tuesday, McCain warned America could not afford the "confused leadership of an inexperienced candidate who once suggested bombing our ally Pakistan" and suggested talks without preconditions with US foes.
The Obama campaign, in the latest sign of a nascent general election campaign even before he clinches the nomination, took McCain to task in a conference call by the Illinois senator's foreign policy advisor Susan Rice.
"The truth is, John McCain is misrepresenting and distorting Barack Obama's positions," Rice said.
Rice brought up Obama's opposition to the Iraq war, which McCain backed, arguing the Arizona senator's decision showed he lacked judgment on foreign policy, linking him to Bush's former defense secretary and vice president.
"John McCain, like Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney may have years in Washington, but they have demonstrated that when it comes to the crucial national security challenges of the day, their experience didn't help them."
"He is really in many respects, just four more years of George Bush."
Rice also rebuked McCain over a video clip widely circulated on the Internet last year, which showed him singing "Bomb Iran" in a lighthearted riff on the Beach Boys hit "Barbara Ann" during a campaign rally.
"If he wants to say that he was joking and that is the kind of joke he thinks is funny, that is his perogative," Rice said.
After slumping to her 10th consecutive nominating contest defeat to Obama -- in Wisconsin and Hawaii on Tuesday -- Clinton has launched her own fresh assault on Obama's credentials to serve as commander-in-chief.
In a speech in New York on Wednesday, the former first lady's critique mirrored that of McCain, as she said Americans need "a president, ready on day one, to be commander-in-chief of the United States military."
Her chief strategist Mark Penn argued Clinton was better placed to match McCain's "extensive credibility" as a potential commander-in-chief.
He said Democrats had a "stark choice" between Clinton, "who's been on the (Senate) Armed Services Committee, who's been to 80 countries, who's worked with world leaders ... or a candidate with relatively no experience on national security and a limited time in the US Senate before starting to run for president."
Last July, Clinton pounced on Obama's comment that he would be ready to meet leaders of US foes including Iran and North Korea as president as "irresponsible" and "naive."
Obama replied that Clinton was no more than "Bush-Cheney lite" and often invokes late Democratic president John Kennedy to argue the United States should not be afraid to talk to its enemies.
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