In a sign of desperation about her faltering campaign, Hillary Clinton has begun blatantly lying about her record and Obama's position on opposing the Iraq War. Apparently, Hillary believes that comparisons of the two candidate's positions on Iraq should begin only in 2005, the year Obama came to the Senate.

But even if we use Clinton's ridiculous yardstick, Obama still beat her to the punch in 2005 according to Jake Tapper of ABC News:

But even if one were to employ this "Start Counting in January 2005" measurement, Clinton did not criticize the war in Iraq first.

Scrambling to support their boss's claim, Clinton campaign officials pointed to a paper statement Clinton issued on January 26, 2005, explaining her vote to confirm Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State.

"The Administration and Defense Department's Iraq policy has been, by any reasonable measure, riddled with errors, misstatements and misjudgments," the January 2005 Clinton statement said. "From the beginning of the Iraqi war, we were inadequately prepared for the aftermath of the invasion with too few troops and an inadequate plan to stabilize Iraq."

But Obama offered criticisms of the war in Iraq eight days before that, directly to Rice, in his very first meeting as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on January 18.

Here's what Obama said to Condoleeza Rice:

"I am concerned about this notion that was pursued by Senator Biden and others that we've made significant progress in training troops. Because it seems to me that in your response to Senator Alexander that we will not be able to get our troops out absent the Iraqi forces being able to secure their own country, or at least this administration would not be willing to define success in the absence of such security. I never got quite a clear answer to Senator Biden's question as to how many troops -- Iraqi troops -- don't just have a uniform and aren't just drawing a paycheck, but are effective enough and committed enough that we would willingly have our own troops fighting side-by- side with them. The number of 120,000 you gave, I suspect, does not meet those fairly stringent criteria that Senator Biden was alluding to. I just want to make sure, on the record, that you give me some sense of where we're at now."

"If our measure is bring our troops home and success is measured by whether Iraqis can secure their own circumstances, and if our best troops in the world are having trouble controlling the situation with 150,000 or so, it sounds like we've got a long way to go. And I think part of what the American people are going to need is some certainty, not an absolute timetable, but a little more certainty than is being provided, because right now, it appears to be an entirely open-ended commitment."

Meanwhile, in February of 2005, Hillary appeared on Meet the Press:

"I don't believe we should tie our hands or the hands of the new Iraqi government," Clinton said. "We don't want to send a signal to the insurgents, to the terrorists that we are going to be out of here at some, you know, date certain."

It's clear that Hillary's position on the Iraq War has always been one of political expediency:

She soon told New York Daily News editors and reporters that it was important for Democrats to combat the idea that they're soft on national security issues like Iraq.

"If you can't persuade a majority of people that you're going to be strong and tough where we need to protect America and our [national] interests, you can't cross the [electoral] threshold," she said.

Personally, I have no doubt that Hillary genuinely supported the idea of invading and thought it was a good idea from the beginning. Certainly her public statements support that contention. It's also clear that during his presidency Bill Clinton made several attempts to overthrow the Hussein regime so why shouldn't we expect that Hillary supported his policy as well?

At the same time in 2005 that Hillary was focused on the electoral perils of advocating withdrawal from Iraq, Obama was trying to figure out how to bring the troops home:

The Bloomington, Illinois, Pantagraph reported that during a town hall meeting, asked about the Iraq war, "Obama said poor planning by the Bush administration has left Iraq woefully incapable of handling its own security. He expressed hope that more intensive training will be provided for Iraqi forces, saying such measures could allow most American troops to return home next year. While Obama said the recent Iraqi election is an encouraging sign for democracy, he questioned Bush's rationale for the Iraq invasion. 'I didn't see the weapons of mass destruction at the time, I didn't think there was an imminent threat from Saddam Hussein.'"

Obama should really thank the Clinton campaign for giving him another chance to burnish his anti-war credentials. What makes this whole effort on the part of Clinton so absurd is that she is certainly not going to fool the anti-war left on this one. I can guarantee you that the vast majority of Democratic voters are well aware that she voted in favor of the authorization of the use of force in Iraq thanks to the almost daily drumbeat from the anti-war blogosphere, led by Daily Kos and others. It's plainly obvious that Hillary supported the war for years until she began running for president and realized she could not win without changing her stance. It's a bit too late for her to rewrite history on this one.

So this episode does three things: 1) it reminds us that Hillary supported the war well into 2005, 2) it reminds us that Obama opposed the war from the beginning, and 3) it raises questions again about Hillary's truthfulness. The Obama campaign should send Hillary a thank you note for this one.