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LYNCHBURG, Virginia: Barack Obama savaged his Republican rival John McCain on Wednesday for running a dishonourable campaign that aides to the Democrat said smacked of "reckless" desperation.
In some of the most vehement attacks yet heaped on the Arizona senator by the Obama camp during this White House campaign, the Illinois senator said he honoured McCain's public service but not the manner of his electioneering.
Coinciding with a new poll suggesting McCain has overhauled Obama among voters nationally, Obama's senior foreign policy adviser Susan Rice portrayed the Republican as a hot-head who could not be trusted to stay cool under fire.
McCain's "tendency is to shoot first and to ask questions later," she said on a conference call alongside former White House anti-terrorism adviser Richard Clarke, who called the Republican "trigger-happy" and "reckless".
McCain, according to Rice, "cheer-led (President George W.) Bush's decision to take our eye off the ball and start a war in Iraq that had nothing to do with 9/11".
"This is a record that belies anything approaching sound judgment," she said.
Clarke added, "he has consistently been quick-draw McCain here on every issue. His first instinct is to rattle sabres and look for a military solution."
Obama himself, addressing voters in rural Virginia, was also in fighting mood heading into next week's Democratic convention, which marks the countdown to a furious two months of coast-to-coast campaigning for November's election.
"John McCain, let's face it, he's got a compelling biography," Obama said, citing the Republican's captivity during the Vietnam War.
"That's what people think about instead of focusing on the fact that he wants to continue the same economic policies that George Bush's been doing for the last eight years," he said.
"I honour his service, but I don't honour his policies and I don't honour his politics."
The Obama camp's rhetoric has escalated sharply ahead of the Denver convention, after being hammered by McCain for weeks over national security and, more recently, the crisis in Georgia.
There were new signs on Wednesday that the McCain strategy may be paying off, with a George Washington University national battleground poll finding McCain with a slim one percentage point lead over Obama.
Other recent polls have shown the race as a statistical tie, and suggest McCain has trimmed away at Obama's former small leads.
McCain on Wednesday denied he was questioning Obama's patriotism, and accused his Democratic foe of getting "testy" over his attacks on Iraq.
The Arizona senator told supporters in New Mexico that Obama had been wrong to oppose the US troop surge strategy in Iraq which Republicans credit with quelling raging violence.
"Yesterday, Senator Obama got a little testy on this issue, he said I am questioning his patriotism," McCain said at a town hall meeting.
"Let me be very clear, I am not questioning his patriotism, I am questioning his judgment. Senator Obama has made it clear he values withdrawal from Iraq above victory in Iraq.
"He has made these decisions not because he doesn't love America but because he doesn't think it matters whether American wins or loses."
McCain, a vocal supporter of the surge strategy introduced last year, opposes what he calls artificial timetables for troop withdrawals from Iraq, which he says would squander recent US security gains.
Obama argues McCain wants to keep US troops bogged down indefinitely in Iraq, and has vowed to begin troop withdrawals with the goal of getting most US combat soldiers out of the country within 16 months.
On Tuesday, Obama complained at what he views as slanders on his patriotism, after McCain said the day before that the Democrat had put his personal political ambition before US national interests on Iraq policy.
"Let me be clear: I will let no one question my love of this country," Obama said in North Carolina.
- AFP/so
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