John McCain kept drawing clear lines between himself and Barack Obama today, on National Security and Foreign Policy issues. McCain called Obama "naive," and focused on some very questionable comments by Obama last August:

Presumptive Republican nominee John McCain Wednesday branded Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama "naive," seeking to define his possible general election rival as weak on national security.

The charge signalled that Senator McCain, a 71-year-old former navy pilot, Vietnam prisoner of war, and Iraq hawk will try to frame any general election clash with Obama as a referendum on the first-term senator's inexperience.

Obama's campaign quickly replied, and in another harbinger of a possible Obama-McCain election showdown, linked the senator to President George W. Bush's foreign policy legacy.

Senator McCain zeroed in a speech by Obama in August in which he said he would be prepared to strike Al-Qaeda on Pakistani territory if Islamabad would not respond to actionable intelligence.

"Well, the best idea is to not broadcast what you're going to do. That's naive," McCain told reporters in Columbus, Ohio.

"You don't broadcast that you are going to bomb a country that is a sovereign nation and that you are dependent on ... in the struggle against (the) Taliban and the sanctuaries which they hold."

On Tuesday, McCain warned America could not afford the "confused leadership of an inexperienced candidate who once suggested bombing our ally Pakistan" and suggested talks without preconditions with US foes.