Democratic White House contenders Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton clashed angrily in a South Carolina debate accusing each other of shading the truth and drawing a rebuke from rival John Edwards for “squabbling”.
With tensions rising in the Democratic battle for the presidential nomination, Obama and Clinton exchanged harsh words several times, cutting each other off and talking over each other on Monday in the most heated debate of a heavily contested campaign.
Obama questioned Clinton’s truthfulness when she attacked his recent campaign-trail statements on Iraq, former Republican President Ronald Reagan’s ideas and spending.
“One of the things that’s happened during the course of this campaign, there’s a set of assertions made by Senator Clinton, as well as her husband, that are not factually accurate,’’ said Obama, an Illinois senator who would be the first black US president.
Clinton, a New York senator who would be the first US woman president, said it was hard to debate Obama.
“It is very difficult having a straight-up debate with you because you never take responsibility for any vote,’’ she told Obama.
“It is sometimes difficult to understand what Senator Obama has said, because as soon as he is confronted on it, he says that’s not what he meant,’’ she said.
In an ABC interview that aired earlier in the day, Obama criticised Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, for making untrue attacks on his record. The Clintons have questioned Obama’s early opposition to the Iraq war.
