Barack Obama and his Republican White House rival John McCain have traded barbs today over how to fight terrorism.
The McCain camp says Obama's call for court trials for suspected extremists reveals a preference for a legal approach, instead of fighting militants on the battlefield.
Portraying the Illinois senator as soft on terror, McCain's chief foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann said "once again we have seen that Obama is a perfect manifestation of a September 10 mindset."
"He brings the attitudes, the failures of judgment, the weakness, the misunderstanding of the nature of our adversaries and the dangers posed by them to a series of policy decisions," he told reporters.
"If Obama did receive that 3am phone call, I guess his response would be to call lawyers at the Justice Department."
The Democrats say McCain is recycling the ominous rhetoric of President George W Bush's war on terror, which has left the US bereft of allies embroiled in Iraq, and facing new threats in Afghanistan.
A new Washington Post-ABC News poll gives Obama a narrow lead of 48 per cent to McCain’s 42 per cent among all voters.
