Marathon Pundit: Obama anti-war ad a re-reading of 2002 speech

As Hillary Clinton continues to distance herself from Barack Obama in the opinion polls, his sole hope of winning the Democratic nomination for president, barring an unforseeen collapse by HRC, is probably based on playing up his anti-Iraq War credentials.

Even if it means a little creativity by the Obama campaign in repeating one of his early claims to glory--his 2002 anti-war speech.

From Lynn Sweet's Chicago Sun-Times column:

The Obama campaign readily admits that White House hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) recently recorded a portion of the Oct. 2, 2002, anti-Iraq war speech he originally delivered at an outdoor rally in Chicago for a new ad that went online Thursday.

There is no good audio tape of the speech, which is playing a pivotal role in the Obama campaign. But the campaign used a sound effect to create the impression one was listening to the original speech.

"It was Barack re-reading a portion of the speech. As I told you, there is no original tape," Obama's chief strategist, David Axelrod, told me in an e-mail exchange.

The 77-second ad uses sound effects that could easily lead one to conclude that one is listening to Obama making the original speech at the plaza rally outside the Kluczynski Federal Building in the Loop.