So Barak Obama took all of about 30 seconds in this race to fall back on the most tired, old right-wing attack phrase of the 90s - quoth the (seemingly more junior everyday) Senator:
It is ironic that the Clintons had no problem with David Geffen when was raising them $18 million and sleeping at their invitation in the Lincoln bedroom.
Nice going, Senator - when you sound like Dick Morris, you've scored one for the good guys. As Digby (no Clinton lover) observes, it's "one of the best old wingnut chestnuts around."
Obama's attack was a reaction to the Clinton campaign's consternation over remarks that movie mogul David Geffen made to anti-feminist New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, in a column that had you picturing MoDo poolside at the mansion, with a Sally Fields thought-bubble floating up towards Bel-Air reading "he likes me, he really likes me."
Uh, no he doesn't Maureen - and he hates the Clintons, which is why you called him in the first place - to allow a personal grudge the right-hand column of the paper of record's famed op-ed page. Geffen is a real political animal and clearly believes in democracy, especially our new open-source, netroots-empowered version. After all, he told Dowd this:
I think that America was better served when the candidates were chosen in smoke-filled rooms.
Back to Digby, who thinks Hillary should'nt have responded but saves the harshest chastisement for my fellow Columbia alum:
Obama should know better than to use that old Lincoln bedroom trope. Does he think the right wing won't use the exact same made-up nonsense against him?
Perhaps someone should tell him about how the Washington Post helped gin up that controversy on behalf of the GOP congressional scumbags, even going so far as to count Chelsea Clinton's slumber party guests in the Lincoln Bedroom controversy.
Jesus. Sometimes I don't think we deserve to win. We can't seem to stop helping the other side, even when they are down and out.
And here's something to cheer you. It's only February. Of 2007.
UPDATE: Bill Richardson agrees that Obama should apologize to Clinton. Meanwhile, some of the long knives on the left are out for Hillary. Markos Moulitsas compares Clinton to George W. Bush, the ultimate obscenity hurled against any Democratic this year. And Arianna Huffington calls the Clintons liars. In comments, my readers suggest I'm auditioning for Clinton - not sure what that means or what they know. She is my strong personal choice at this stage for President of the United States. I can assure these rumor-mongering commenters that my feelings of strong distaste at one Democrat attacking another (especially as clumsily as Obama did) are very strong indeed. As they remain with Digby, who sums this up well as per usual:
Will the press go after Clinton for being a "calculating" bitch? (I think that word's been used more in the past month than ever before in history.) Of course. Will they attack her mercilessly and dredge up every old trope that was used against her back in the day? Undoubtedly. But it is almost impossible to believe they could come up with any real dirt on her because there has never been a more thoroughly vetted candidate in history. Not that the swift-boaters won't just make stuff up like they always do, but it should not be believable to anyone in the mainstream media and it should be greeted with so much skepticism as to be laughable on its face.
I have no dog in this fight and I could not care less if you vote for Hillary Clinton or if you don't. Neither do I care if you think she's a calculating bitch and hate her stance on the war and loathe everything she and her husband did during their administration. Those are fair game. But I will be damned if I'll passively accept this ongoing enabling of character assassination against Democrats, I don't care who they are. If an eight year multi-million dollar federal investigation into every aspect of his or her life isn't enough for the mainstream media to accept that there is no unethical or criminal charges that can credibly be brought against Hillary Clinton then no candidate is safe. If they can believe that "dirt" still exists against her, imagine what they will do with the inevitable swift boat attacks on a candidate who is fairly new on the scene?
This idea that there's "dirt" yet to be unearthed about Clinton is a pernicious rightwing meme designed to stoke the fear that we will be back in tabloid trivia land if Clinton is elected.
UPDATE II: Obama backs off, reprimands his staff, says he never saw the heated response before it went out, and basically tries to return his campaign to the higher level of rhetoric it briefly enjoyed:
“I told my staff that I don’t want us to be a party to these kinds of distractions because I want to make sure that we’re spending time talking about issues. My preference going forward is that we have to be careful not to slip into playing the game as it customarily is played.”
