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“My husband said he was going to see his family,” she said. “And the Russians said again, ‘Are you going to the American side?’”

“So the Russians view you as the American side, even though there are no Americans here.”

“Yes,” she said. “Because our way is for democracy.”

Such comments "border on the bizarre frankly," Rice said, speaking to reporters traveling with her in Warsaw.

"When you threaten Poland, you perhaps forget that it is not 1988," Rice said. "It's 2008 and the United States has a ... firm treaty guarantee to defend Poland's territory as if it was the territory of the United States. So it's probably not wise to throw these threats around."

Poles have been shaken by the threats, but NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop dismissed them Tuesday as "pathetic rhetoric."

"It is unhelpful and it leads nowhere," he told reporters at a NATO meeting in Brussels, Belgium.

Over the years, Obama repeatedly has said the Illinois measure was different from the federal version in a key way — it lacked language spelling out that it would not interfere with abortion rights. If the Illinois legislation had that provision, he said, he would have backed it.

Now, however, abortion opponents have pointed out that Obama opposed a version of the bill that included a "neutrality clause." The bill was killed in 2003 by a state Senate committee Obama chaired.

Over the years, Obama repeatedly has said the Illinois measure was different from the federal version in a key way — it lacked language spelling out that it would not interfere with abortion rights. If the Illinois legislation had that provision, he said, he would have backed it.

Now, however, abortion opponents have pointed out that Obama opposed a version of the bill that included a "neutrality clause." The bill was killed in 2003 by a state Senate committee Obama chaired.

"He needs to explain misleading people. He needs to explain why he apparently covered that up," Stanek said.

The Obama campaign's explanation is that even if the federal and state versions had identical language, they would have very different consequences.