OBAMA

NEW YORK (AP):

Elizabeth Edwards, wife of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, lambastes his rival Barack Obama as "holier than thou" on the Iraq war and accuses Hillary Rodham Clinton of failing to show leadership on health care and Iraq.

As her husband trails Democratic rivals Clinton and Obama in national polls, Elizabeth Edwards has been an outspoken critic of his opponents. Last month, she said her husband would be a better champion for women as president than Clinton and more recently said, "We can't make John black, we can't make him a woman. Those things get you a lot of press, worth a certain amount of fund-raising dollars."

In an interview published in the August issue of The Progressive magazine, Elizabeth Edwards complained about Obama, who opposed the war when he was a state legislator in Illinois and later as a Senate candidate but has since voted for funds for the military.

John Edwards, then a North Carolina senator, voted in 2002 to authorise the military invasion of Iraq. Since then, he has said his vote was a mistake.