The excellent next nine years
Agents of Sen. Hillary Clinton are spreading the word in Democratic circles that she has scandalous information about her principal opponent for the party’s presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama, but has decided not to use it. The nature of the alleged scandal was not disclosed. This word-of-mouth among Democrats makes Obama look vulnerable and Clinton look prudent.
Two points: (a) she’s already used the “scandalous information,” just by issuing the implicit threat of doing so; and (b) maybe we actually would prefer soporific reruns of Irwin Allen movies to ham-fisted parodies of the Sopranos.
UPDATE
In a darkly humorous twist to the Novak rumor saga, the Clinton campaign used Obama’s reaction to the column as a further weapon against him. Reuters:
Obama, a first-term senator seeking to portray himself as an alternative to traditional Washington politics, seized on the article and said Clinton should either come forward with any information she has or repudiate Novak’s column. “She of all people, having complained so often about ‘the politics of personal destruction,’ should move quickly to either stand by or renounce these tactics,” Obama said in his initial statement. He called the column “a shameless item” aimed at smearing him through “innuendo and insinuation.”
Clinton’s camp quickly fired back. “A Republican-leaning journalist runs a blind item designed to set Democrats against one another. Experienced Democrats see this for what it is. Others get distracted and thrown off their games,” Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said in a statement. “We have no idea what Mr. Novak’s item is about and reject it totally.”
The brass of these people in the Clinton campaign: “Experienced Democrats see this for what it is. Others get distracted and thrown off their games.” Magnificent! To plant a rumor (true or false) and then to blame the victim of the rumor for reacting to it — there is a certain kind of genius, albeit not benign, at work here.
November 17th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
Recall that Hillary already has copies of all the top secret FBI background reports on her political opponents. And anyone who believes Hillary only considers Republicans her opponents is extremely naive.
What I find puzzling is that anyone would be moronic enough to believe Hillary’s finer moral sensibilities, or her ethical principles, would prevent her using such information to destroy any threat at the first opportune moment. Can you say ‘Ken Starr’?