“It’s 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep,” says a narrator as threatening music surges over dark black-and-white images.

There’s a world crisis and the White House phone is ringing. “Your vote will decide who answers that call,” the narrator says. “Whether it’s someone who already knows the world’s leaders, knows the military — someone tested and ready to lead in a dangerous world.”

It ends with a photo of Mrs. Clinton wearing glasses and picking up the phone.

Mr. Obama, responding to the ad during a stop in Houston, said it raised “a perfectly legitimate question.”

But, he said: “We’ve seen these ads before. They’re the kind that play on people’s fears to try to scare up votes.”

Later the Obama campaign released a new ad to respond directly to the one from Mrs. Clinton’s campaign. It says in part: “It’s 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep. But there’s a phone ringing in the White House. Something’s happening in the world. When that call gets answered, shouldn’t the president be the one — the only one — who had judgment and courage to oppose the Iraq war from the start.”

The commercial concluded, “In a dangerous world, it’s judgment that matters.”

Mrs. Clinton followed the ad with a blistering indictment of Mr. Obama’s qualifications to serve as commander in chief, saying he had been “missing in action” at several important moments.

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