Clinton surrogate attacks Obama using Russert's misleading interview.

Clinton supporter Rep. Jim McGovern (D) writes at Huffington Post: "Senator Obama has been trying to use his early opposition to the 2002 authorization to use military force as a way to bring attention to his campaign. And that's fine -- that's politics. I have great respect and admiration for Senator Obama. But he should be more careful, because his record doesn't always line up with his rhetoric.

"That became clear when Sen. Obama appeared on Meet the Press last Sunday, Tim Russert reminded him of comments he made about Iraq during the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Talking about how he would have voted on the '02 authorization, Mr. Russert flashed a quote from then-State Senator Obama on the screen that said: 'I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports. What would I have done? I don't know.' In response, Senator Obama said it was probably the wrong time for him to speak out on the war.

Russert misleadingly cropped Obama comment to claim he wasn't "firmly wedded against the war"

Summary: Interviewing Barack Obama on Meet the Press, Tim Russert read a quote he attributed to Obama to suggest that he has "not been a leader against the war": "In July of 2004, Barack Obama: 'I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports. ... What would I have done? I don't know,' in terms of how you would have voted on the war."

Russert did not quote the very next sentence of Obama's statement, which was, "What I know is that from my vantage point the case was not made" for authorizing the war.

Correction, Nov. 8: In our original version of this story, we found Clinton’s response regarding the Archives to be “doubly misleading.” We have since concluded that we were wrong, and have rewritten the section as you see it above.
Two days after this article was first posted, Bruce Lindsey, who is Bill Clinton’s designated representative for dealing with the National Archives, issued a statement that said, in part, “Contrary to recent reports, Bill Clinton has not asked that records related to communications with Senator Clinton be withheld.” It also said that “Currently, none of the FOIA requests has processed and provided for my review involve Senator Clinton. On the same day, the former president responded to a reporter’s question about the issue. Hillary Clinton “was incidental to the letter, it was done five years ago, it was a letter to speed up presidential releases, not to slow them down,” Bill Clinton said at a stop in Redmond, WA.
These statements prompted us to dive back into Bill Clinton’s 2002 letter to the Archives and similar letters from his two immediate predecessors, and to talk to some more experts in this small crevice of the law. We realized that the area of confusion for us – and perhaps for other journalists – was the wording of this sentence: “nformation should generally be considered for withholding only if it contains…..” The section goes on to list eight categories, one of which involves his communications with his wife as well as with his family and his wife’s.
We originally read the sentence as putting a lock on the documents. That isn’t the case, as we note in our revised section in the body of the article above. The bottleneck is at the lightly staffed Archives. It of course remains possible that Bill Clinton could yet block the release of any or all communications between himself and the First Lady, but that hasn’t happened yet It remains to be seen whether any of this material will surface before the election.
But Russert was wrong, and so were we Bill Clinton, in Redmond, called Russert’s question “breathtakingly misleading,” and we now agree. Russert did not respond to requests for comment.