Senator Barack Obama is defending his foreign policy credentials, saying his service on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and his judgment should allay any voter concerns about his experience. At a campaign event on Friday evening, Mr. Obama suggested he had more foreign policy experts from the Clinton administration supporting him than Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton did. That, he told voters, “should raise some pretty interesting questions.”“Even by the standards of Washington,” Mr. Obama said, “I have dealt more with foreign policy than, let’s say, Bill Clinton had, when he became president, or Ronald Reagan — he was governor at the time.”
Shortly after Mr. Obama made his comments in response to a voter’s question, Mrs. Clinton produced a list of more than 80 foreign policy advisers supporting her candidacy who had worked in the Clinton administration. The Obama campaign did not respond to requests for a similar list for Mr. Obama. “Attacking Senator Clinton by making claims about his foreign policy credentials that he can’t support only raises more questions about Senator Obama’s experience,” said Phil Singer, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton.