Obama also has news for McCain

Obama departed from his regular stump speech today in Columbus to respond to John McCain.

"John McCain may like to say he wants to follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of Hell, but so far all he’s done is follow George Bush into a misguided war in Iraq," he said.

Obama was responding, incredulously, to McCain's suggestion that he's unaware of the presence of Al Qaeda in Iraq, which the Arizona Senator said earlier today was apparently "news" to Obama at last night's debate.

"McCain thought that he could make a clever point by saying, 'Well let me give you some news, Barack, Al Qaeda is in Iraq,' like I wasn’t reading the papers, like didn’t know what was going on." Obama said, leaning into his developing McCain impression.

He then described the context -- a hypothetical question from Tim Russert -- and said, "First of all, I do know Al Qaeda is in Iraq, and that’s why I said we should continue to strike Al Qaeda targets."

"I have some news for John McCain," Obama continued, "That’s there was no Al Qaeda in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain" began the Iraq war, he said.

"They took their eye off the people who really were responsible for 9/11," he said.

This is the core terrain of an Obama-McCain general election: McCain attacks Obama's readiness to lead; Obama links him, Bush, and the war.

[Slightly updated with fuller quotes.]