SwiftVets.com

[Tanya]

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--senaterace0624jun24,0,2152604.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork

June 24, 2005, 7:01 PM EDT


WASHINGTON -- "A would-be challenger to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's re-election in 2006 charged Friday she is part of a "soft underbelly" of liberal politicians trying to divide the nation over the war on terror.

The broadside from Republican John Spencer, a former Yonkers mayor, was the latest verbal fusillade in a war of words between Republicans and Democrats over the aftermath of Sept. 11.

Clinton, D-N.Y., was part of a group of Senate Democrats, including Sen. Charles Schumer, who on Thursday demanded top White House aide Karl Rove apologize or resign for comments about Sept. 11 at a political fundraiser in Manhattan.

Spencer, a Vietnam veteran, charged Clinton was seeking to advance her own ambitions by splitting the country.

"She's running for president, and I think deep in her heart she would love a divided nation," Spencer said. "The enemy within is the politicians in Washington who use war for their own political gain to divide our nation and attack our president."

He charged Clinton was part of a "soft underbelly" of liberals that leave the United States more vulnerable to terrorists."

~snip~
"At an Armed Services Committee hearing, Clinton told Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that she wanted to see "a different tone."

"I'm old enough to remember how deeply divided our country was in Vietnam. I never want to see that again," she said.

Spencer, an infantry lieutenant in 1968 and 1969, said if Clinton really cared about the soldiers serving overseas, she would have spoken out when fellow Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois invoked Nazis and the Soviet gulag in a speech on the Senate floor about the U.S. military installation at Guantanamo Bay. Durbin later apologized.

"Why do you stand by these colleagues?" Spencer asked."