WASHINGTON -- Ignoring GOP criticism that she's too angry for prime time, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton Wednesday walloped Karl Rove and President George W. Bush for "playing the fear card" on terrorism and for failing to kill "the tallest man in Afghanistan," Osama bin Laden.

Clinton exhorted Democrats to challenge the administration on Iraq, Afghanistan and the war on terror, while seeming to bemoan the failure of former Democratic presidential candidates John Kerry and Al Gore to overcome claims that they were soft on defense.

"We've lost two elections and we lost them on the issue of security," Clinton told the United Auto Workers convention in Washington. Republicans "are doing it to us again," she said.

The speech was intended to road-test stump themes for her upcoming Senate re-election bid, but most of the issues Clinton invoked were national, including unusually blunt criticisms of Bush's homeland security and terrorism policy.

"Two weeks ago, [White House political director] Karl Rove ... was telling the National Republican Committee 'Here's your game plan, folks, here's how you're gonna win -- we're gonna win by getting everybody scared again,'" Clinton said. "This crowd 'All we've got is fear and we are going to keep playing the fear card.'"

Saying she takes "a backseat to nobody when it comes to fighting terrorism," Clinton accused the White House of portraying critics of Iraq and Afghanistan policy as comforting the enemy.

"Since when has it been part of American patriotism to keep our mouths shut?" she said.

Clinton drew thunderous applause when she mocked the administration's failure to track down the 6-foot-5 bin Laden. "You cannot explain to me why we have not captured or killed the tallest man in Afghanistan," she said.

In August 1998, Bill Clinton ordered an unsuccessful missile attack on bin Laden's base camp in Afghanistan, a fact Republicans eagerly pointed out Wednesday.

Aides to Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican National Committee, portrayed the speech as another example of Clinton's anger management problem.

"It's clear that Hillary Clinton does not understand that anger is not an agenda," said committee spokesman Danny Diaz. "While the junior senator from New York is busy attacking our commander-in-chief, the president is focused on taking the fight to the terrorists. ... It's a pre-9/11 world view."

Clinton touched on other themes, including coverage, growing foreign debt, her dissatisfaction with the administration's energy policy and her call for a summit to address downsizing of the American auto industry, which resonated with the auto workers Wednesday.

Clinton followed Vermont Rep. Bernie Sanders, who slammed the Bush White House as "one of the worst in history" -- virtually the same criticism Clinton used during a fiery Martin Luther King Jr. Day speech in Harlem.

Commentary:
This WH leaks classified information to the media so they can destroy a CIA operative and they still won on security. The media played a huge part of this problem. When Sen. Clinton says the word "plantation" it's headline news. When she articulates an argument against Bush, it's ignored by the media, especially TV. The media (talk tv) is trying to destroy Sen. Clinton, just like they destroyed Gore and Kerry (and almost destroyed Clinton).