Supporters of Sen. John McCain seized upon comments about terrorism made by Sen. Barack Obama in an interview with ABC News Monday, saying his approving words about the prosecution of the 1993 World Trade Center bombings indicated a naïve, pre-9/11, and dangerous view of how to combat terrorism.
"Senator Obama is a perfect manifestation of a September 10th mindset," declared Randy Scheunemann, the McCain campaign's director of foreign policy and national security.
James Woolsey, CIA director during the Clinton administration, said Obama was advocating "an extremely dangerous and extremely naïve approach toward terrorism."
The McCain supporters made their comments Tuesday on a conference call arranged by the campaign in response to an ABC News interview with Obama that aired on Monday.
Read the full interview transcript HERE and watch the Nightline report HERE.
Asked during that interview how Obama could be so sure that certain controversial domestic anti-terrorism policies instituted by the Bush administration were not crucial to the protection of U.S. citizens, Obama said that he didn't oppose all the efforts per se, but that "it is my firm belief that we can track terrorists, we can crack down on threats against the United States, but we can do so within the constraints of our Constitution."
Obama then cited "the example of Guantanamo. What we know is that, in previous terrorist attacks -- for example, the first attack against the World Trade Center -- we were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial. They are currently in U.S. prisons, incapacitated. And the fact that the administration has not tried to do that has created a situation where not only have we never actually put many of these folks on trial, but we have destroyed our credibility when it comes to rule of law all around the world, and given a huge boost to terrorist recruitment in countries that say, 'Look, this is how the United States treats Muslims.'"
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