WASHINGTON, Dec 17: Hillary Clinton fiercely attacked Monday her surging rival Barack Obama, hoping to turn around her misfiring campaign just 17 days before the first White House nominating contest.

Democrat Clinton, on an intense helicopter tour of first-voting state Iowa, blitzed six morning television talk shows, brandishing her credentials as a reformer, as her campaign tried to portray Obama as a risky 2008 choice.

“Campaigns are like life, some days are perfect, some days aren’t,” the former first lady said on NBC television, after a rocky month for her once dominant political machine.

But “I am a proven leader,” Clinton argued, days after her husband, ex-president Bill Clinton, warned that an Obama presidency would represent a big risk, owing to his perceived lack of experience in top-level politics.

Clinton is trying to use a key endorsement from the top newspaper in Iowa this weekend to halt Obama’s momentum, which has seen him turn the race the state, and also in New Hampshire, which votes on January 8, into a dead-heat.

“I think it is perfectly legitimate for voters to draw differences among us,” Clinton later told MSNBC.

“The way you can tell what changes I will make is by looking at the changes I have already made,” she said, arguing she was equipped to become president on “day one.” Most opinion surveys show Obama rising, and Clinton sliding, suggesting the first-term Illinois senator may be peaking at the right time.

LIEBERMAN ENDORSES REPUBLICAN: Sen. John McCain, trying to build momentum for his Republican presidential candidacy, brought in something unusual on Monday _ an endorsement from the other party.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the Democrats’ 2000 vice presidential nominee, said he was intending to wait until after the primaries to make a choice for the 2008 presidential race. But McCain asked for his support and no Democrat did.

Lieberman, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, said he chose his longtime Senate colleague because he has the best shot of breaking partisan gridlock in Washington. Both men also support the war in Iraq.

“On all the issues, you’re never going to do anything about them unless you have a leader who can break through the partisan gridlock,” Lieberman said. “The status quo in Washington is not working.”

Independents can vote in New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary on Jan. 8 and they are the people McCain is targeting, much as he did in winning the state’s Republican primary in 2000 over George W. Bush.

Lieberman said McCain’s approach to Iraq and his credentials on national security are the main reasons he is throwing his support to a Republican for president.—Agencies