In his speech Tuesday night in Iowa, Barack Obama took the fight to John McCain hard, tying him directly to President Bush's failed policies and slamming him on everything from lobbyists and Iraq to health care and tax cuts.

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"This year’s Republican primary was a contest to see which candidate could out-Bush the other, and that’s a contest that John McCain won.

"Now, I will leave it up to Senator McCain to explain to the American people whether his policies and positions represent long-held convictions or Washington calculations, but the one thing they don’t represent is change."

You can watch the entire thing here, which includes this line, by far my favorite of the speech:

"No matter how this primary ends, Senator Clinton has shattered myths and broken barriers and changed the America in which my daughters and your daughters will come of age, and for that we are grateful to her."

Full transcript below the fold:

More than anything, we need this unity and this energy in the months to come, because, while our primary has been long and hard- fought, the hardest and most important part of our journey still lies ahead.

We face an opponent, John McCain, who arrived in Washington nearly three decades ago as a Vietnam War hero and earned an admirable reputation for straight talk and occasional independence from his party.

But this year’s Republican primary was a contest to see which candidate could out-Bush the other, and that’s a contest that John McCain won.

The Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans that once bothered John McCain’s conscience are now his only economic policy.

The Bush health care plan that only helps those who are already healthy and wealthy is now John McCain’s answer to the 47 million Americans without insurance and the millions more who can’t pay their medical bills.

The Bush Iraq policy that asks everything from our troops and nothing of Iraqi politicians is John McCain’s policy, too. And so is the fear of tough and aggressive diplomacy that has left this country more isolated and less secure than at any time in recent history.

The lobbyists who ruled George Bush’s Washington are now running John McCain’s campaign. And they actually had the nerve the other day to say that the American people won’t care about this.

Talk about out of touch. I think the American people care plenty about that.

Now, I will leave it up to Senator McCain to explain to the American people whether his policies and positions represent long-held convictions or Washington calculations, but the one thing they don’t represent is change.