N.Y. Senator Voices Disapproval Of Ad Mocking Petraeus

WASHINGTON — Under fire from Republicans, Senator Clinton is registering her disapproval of a MoveOn.org ad that mocked General Petraeus, days after she voted against a Senate resolution that specifically condemned the antiwar group's attack.

In a series of television interviews yesterday, Mrs. Clinton sought repeatedly to turn attention away from what has become a flashpoint campaign issue following President Bush's scathing rebuke of a tepid reaction by Democratic leaders to the MoveOn.org ad, which referred to General Petraeus as "General Betray Us."

She pointed out her vote in favor of a broad Senate resolution on Thursday that denounced the attack on General Petraeus along with criticism by Republican-aligned groups of the military service of two Democratic lawmakers, Senator Kerry of Massachusetts and a former Georgia senator, Max Cleland.

Mrs. Clinton gave no explanation, however, for her decision to reject a separate measure authored by a Republican senator that condemned only the MoveOn.org attack on General Petraeus.

"I don't condone it. I voted to condemn it," the former first lady said on CNN's "Late Edition," referring to the broader resolution introduced by a fellow Democrat, Senator Boxer of California.

She said several times that she admired General Petraeus.

The Democratic presidential front-runner yesterday made the rounds of the Sunday talk show circuit for the first time in nearly two years, ostensibly to promote the universal health care plan she unveiled last week. While she touted her proposal, she also offered her views in response to questions on a range of other topics, including her shift in positions on Iraq war policy, the upcoming visit to New York of President Ahmadinejad of Iran, and comments made by a top campaign adviser, Tom Vilsack of Iowa, that were critical of Mayor Giuliani's personal life.

While reiterating her outrage at a possible visit by the Iranian president to ground zero, she declined to criticize Columbia University for inviting him to speak. "I'm going to leave that up to Columbia," she said. But pressed by CNN's Wolf Blitzer for her personal view, she added: "Well, if I were a president of the university, I would not have invited him. He's a Holocaust denier. He's a supporter of terrorism. But I also respect the right in our country to make different decisions."

Mrs. Clinton said Mr. Vilsack, a former governor of Iowa, was wrong to bring up Mr. Giuliani's three marriages and the strained relationship he has with his children. "We are not running a campaign that goes down that road," she said on ABC's "This Week," noting that Mr. Vilsack has also backed off his remarks.

And on Iraq, Mrs. Clinton continued a balancing act that keeps her long-term policy close to the political center even as her rhetoric about the urgent need to begin a troop withdrawal veers further to the left.

She promised on ABC to vote against all Senate funding bills that lack a binding timetable for redeployment, but at the same time, she refused to pledge that all American soldiers would be out of Iraq by the end of her first term in office.

"I'm not going to get into hypotheticals and make pledges because I don't know what I'm going to inherit," she said.

She said she would keep a "limited" number of troops in Iraq to protect civilian employees and the American Embassy, fight Al Qaeda and other terrorist elements, protect the Kurds, and to continue training the Iraqi military if its government meets benchmarks.

Mrs. Clinton would not give an estimate of how many American soldiers that would entail, but when ABC's George Stephanopoulos cited a figure of between 40,000 and 75,000 troops, she replied: "I don't think that's accurate."