Shifting gears, Obama meets foreign policy advisers

Defends Biden's 'international challenge' remark

On the campaign trail in Leesburg, Va., yesterday, Senator Barack Obama said the next president cannot view the economy and the world stage in isolation. (Joe Raedle/ Getty Images)

RICHMOND - Senator Barack Obama yesterday sought to reinsert international affairs into a presidential campaign that for weeks has been dominated by the economic crisis, staging a high-profile meeting with foreign policy advisers and defending his running mate's comments that Obama would probably be tested by a crisis early in his presidency.

Obama, stopping in newly competitive Virginia for two events, met with the advisers at a downtown Richmond hotel, then told reporters that Senator Joe Biden was right when he said Sunday that an enemy may seek to test the mettle of the new president.

"We have to be mindful that, as we pass the baton in this democracy, that others don't take advantage of it," Obama said. "That is true whether it's myself or Senator [John] McCain."

Aides to Obama say yesterday's meeting was scheduled before Biden caused a stir by telling campaign donors in Seattle, "We're going to face a major international challenge, 'cause they're going to want to test him, just like they did John Kennedy . . . and they're going to find out this guy's got steel in his spine."

McCain's campaign has seized on Biden's remarks to warn voters that now is not the time to elect a young president with little foreign policy experience.

Pushed on Biden's comments yesterday, Obama said: "Joe sometimes engages in rhetorical flourishes, but I think his core point was that the next administration is going to be tested regardless of who it is, because of the fact that the next administration is going to be inheriting a whole host of really big problems."

Tucker Bounds, a McCain spokesman, responded in a statement that, "It's not leadership for Barack Obama to promise to be straight with Americans, only to dismiss serious statements and concern from his own running mate as simple 'rhetorical flourishes.' Joe Biden guaranteed a generated international crisis if Barack Obama is elected, and a smile-for-the-cameras press conference isn't going to mitigate the risk of an Obama presidency."

Obama's focus on foreign policy was a rare detour in message from the economy, which he has campaigned on almost exclusively for the last several weeks - and for good reason. The polls have moved firmly in his direction since the current economic crisis began last month.

"We just wanted to make sure that, particularly given the extraordinary focus on the global financial crisis over the last month, month and a half, that we didn't lose sight of the fact that that we still have some urgent issues at the international level that are going to have to be dealt with," Obama said, citing the evolving wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the continued threat of terrorism, and the rising power of China.

But he also said that the next president cannot view the economy and the world stage in isolation.

"We often hear about two debates, one on national security and one on the economy. But that's a false distinction," he said. "We must be strong at home to be strong abroad. That's one of the lessons of our history."

Obama again extolled the virtues of multilateralism, saying the world was too interconnected - in terms of global markets and threats from terrorism - for the United States to employ the kind of unilateralism and "empty bluster" he said had been practiced by President Bush.

If McCain wins the presidency he will "continue the policies that have put our economy into crisis and, I believe, endangered our national security," Obama asserted.

He also dismissed McCain's criticism of Obama's earlier comment that it was time to "spread the wealth around" in the United States, which the Arizona senator has likened to a pitch for socialism. Obama said his plan, by rolling back Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy, would "spread around opportunity."

"The irony is, is that when George Bush proposed the original tax cuts that lowered tax rates for the wealthiest Americans, who objected? John McCain," Obama said. "Now was John McCain a socialist back in 2000 when he opposed the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans? Because all I'm trying to do is reverse those so that we can give relief to people who really need help."

Of McCain's attacks, Obama said, "It's an indication they have run out of ideas."

Scott Helman can be reached at shelman@globe.com.