Candidates Spar Over Origins of 9/11 Attacks

A top aide to John McCain aide today called Barack Obama “naïve,” “delusional,” and the “perfect manifestation of a Sept. 10 mindset,” ABC News reports. The sniping came in response to Obama’s comment that the US acted correctly in trying the terrorists behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in the federal court system, the Washington Post reports.

An ex-CIA chief responded that Sept. 11 could have been avoided if those perpetrators had been treated differently. Obama’s campaign dispatched John Kerry and Richard Clarke to rebut, Marc Ambinder writes in the Atlantic. Kerry said McCain was “proving every day that he doesn’t understand Iraq, or the Middle East, or the war on terrorism.” (More Barack Obama stories.)