The Trail

ATTACK ON OBAMA POLICY

McCain Team Seizes On Syria Strike

John McCain's campaign said Monday that the successful U.S. strike against a terrorist target in Syria would not have happened if Barack Obama had been president.

In a sharply worded e-mail, McCain spokesman Michael Goldfarb said: "If Barack Obama had his way, U.S. forces would not have been in a position to launch this strike. So does Barack Obama support this action -- an action that would not even have been possible if his policies had been implemented?"

The U.S. military reported killing or wounding a terrorist leader and killing several other men near Syria's border with Iraq on Sunday.

McCain's statement also raised again Obama's willingness to meet with adversarial foreign leaders and the decision of one of Obama's foreign policy advisers to travel to Syria for meetings with its government.

In the statement, Goldfarb said: "Barack Obama has pledged to meet personally and unconditionally with Syria's leaders during his first year in office. While John McCain has been demanding that Syria do more to crack down on terrorists moving from its territory into Iraq, Barack Obama allowed one of his closest foreign policy advisers to travel to Syria for discussions with the leaders of that rogue regime."

The Obama campaign said that adviser, Daniel Kurtzer, President Bush's former ambassador to Israel, did not represent the Democrat on that trip. It also noted that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met in New York last month with Syria's foreign minister, a meeting that, according to Syrian state media, was requested by Rice.

-- Michael D. Shear

PRAIRIE BATTLEGROUND

Republicans to Start Advertising in Montana

The Republican National Committee will begin running television ads in Montana beginning on Wednesday, a sign of how heavily the playing field is tilted against the GOP with just eight days left in the presidential campaign.