I am an Obama supporter who freely admits that the Obama campaign has attacked Hillary in Recent weeks. So what? If he never threw any jabs to keep her off balance, he would have been destroyed by her haymakers. His campaign tried to stay above the fray and was continuously dragged into it by a fellow democrat who wants to make him unlectable. Times are hard. Get over it.

If Obama is elected under the false pretense that he is Mr. Perfect, he never won the election at all. He needs to present an accurage portrait of who he is to the voters. For all the flack Hillary gets for running an aggressive campaign, I can at least respect her fro admitting that she is a tough campaigner.

Although I would (and did) agree that he has increased the character attacks on Clinton, I don't think it's accurate to call them character assassination. It's more of "character assisted suicide". ;)

Also, I don't think anyone's really of the impression that he's perfect, and I'm annoyed by ideas that he's ever claimed to be anything more than human. I feel he's running a cleaner campaign than most have in the past. That he does so then gets conflated with his campaign's rhetoric about a "new type of politics" (which IMO has as much to do with fundraising as with campaign style). I'm also saddened that it's gotten more negative recently, but I think that he's been left little option.

Bill Clinton himself said if you don't want to play football, don't want to risk a few clips, don't put on the pads.

If you and Hillary can't handle having honest questions asked about character (such as Hillary bringing up Rev. Wright), then get out of the ballgame.

Obama didn't make Hillary sit on releasing her taxes for 6 years. Hillary did. The public has a RIGHT to know if their elected officials are corrupt, and the only way to do that is to follow the money.

Obama didn't make Hillary exaggerate her roles on Bosnia, SCHIP, or FMLA. She did that on her own. The American people have a RIGHT to know why their elected officials LIE (I said it). Dishonesty is a character flaw that should be further investigated.

Obama didn't make Hillary LIE (I said it again) about her role in NAFTA. Again, she did that on her own. When it appeared that someone within the Obama campaign may have eased Canada's fears on NAFTA, Hillary pounced upon it, launching the very character attacks that you're complaining about against Obama. Now that the White House records (as well as attendess of the various meetings) reveal that she played a pivotal role in PASSING NAFTA, this hypocrisy has risen to the surface. After Hillary gave her "Shame on you" speech and ran ads that said Obama was lying about his NAFTA intentions, isn't it realisitic for Obama's camp to tell Pennsylvania what REALLY happened and who REALLY is being dishonest about both her role and intentions regarding NAFTA?

And lastly, you're saying Obama is launching character attacks when clearly it is his campaign manager David Ploufe that said everything you're complaining about. While I believe that the candidates are responsible for everything their campaigns say, I bring this up because you fail to take into account the HORRIBLE things that mssrs. Wolfson, Penn, Ickes, Clinton have said. Comparing Obama to Kenneth Starr for requesting tax documents is ridiculous. Ummm, correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Hillary's camp demand Obama release everything too?

Pointing out dishonesty, hypocrisy and lack of credibility aren't character attacks when they're as obvious as in the case of the Hillary Clinton campaign. They're required.

She could have said, "The constitution insures that there is no religious test for President. That not only applies to me, but Sen. Obama, Gov. Romney and anyone else -- past present or future -- who runs for President. We should be talking about real issues and not made up ones. Do you have questions on another topic, Steve?"

But she didn't.

How could Clinton have known she was going to be asked the same question three times and at that point she would "hedge." How many "no"s does one person have to say before that's accepted as her answer?

Just 3 times would suffice but she chose append "as far as I know". Obviously her political calculating machine took a while to spool up.

To my mind what the candidates say in a premeditated fashion is very important since they are in complete control over what is said. What they say of the cuff is less important in this regard and the power of a candidate to control what is said by supporters and advisers is less still.

By her own words Hillary has been much more abusive than Obama. She didn't have to say "as far as I know" she didn't have to elevate McCain above another democratic nominee but she chose to do so. The Obama spokesman while saying there is a pattern of perceived credibility issues. That can be taken back during the convention as can anything said about the tax returns if they are ever released. But how do you take back saying that the republican is a better CiC all the while stoking peoples fears ??

Obama isn't running on any pretense, let alone one that he's perfect. We know everything there is to now about his teenage drug dabbling, Rezko and Wright. The more you dig into his record as a legislator and an activist the more impressive it is.

Hillary OTH is running on the pretense that she has 35 years of experience standing up for "families". She spent one year at the Children's Defense Fund after college and 16 in Arkansas where she became a partner at the Rose Law Firm when her husband became governor. Her career as a corporate attorney representing big companies more often than not put her at odds with lawyers like John Edwards and Barack Obama who represented average folks without bags of cash seeking redress from her corporate clients. I suppose it all comes down to what kind of "families" you feel earned your help.

Since Bill left office in 2001 he's traveled the world raising money, sometimes for worthy causes, sometimes to line his own pocket and sometimes to
fund his glorious monument to himself: the library & museum in Little Rock. Sadly along the way he's traded favors with a variety of dictators and sleazebags tarnishing his and his wife's reputation for the pursuit of the almighty buck. Sometimes dirty money - blood money - isn't worth it no matter how worthy the cause. That's what is in the tax returns they've yet to release.

There's also a lot of information in the presidential archives that they've done their best to keep buried in the vault. Those records would destroy the carefully crafted picture she's painted of herself as Bill's virtual co-president and blow her credibility right out of the water. So they've stonewalled and slow walked the process claiming the NARA has the sole authority to vett and release the records while having her supporters flood the archivists with requests for photos of the Socks the cat and 10 year old White House Xmas trees to create a massive backlog.

She can only game the system for so long, she's backed herself into a corner saying she'll release years of tax returns about a week before the
PA primary. One lawsuit has already to forced her to release over 11,000 pages of her schedule covering 2800+ days as first lady and there's much more to come as other suits force her hand over the next few months.

For Hillary it was never supposed to come to this. Her strategy was to overwhelm the opposition and wrap up the nomination on super tuesday, long before any of this became an issue. She'd have all summer to argue that despite her flawed phony life story and Cheney like bent for secrecy she's still better than crazy old McCain and shoot for that 50% plus 1. Unfortunately for her we have a far better choice than that.

I'm a precinct committeeman in a formerly heavily Republican county. In our February primary for the first time ever more people took Democratic ballots than Republican and they did it to give Obama an overwhelming victory.

We have Dem candidates up and down the ballot who will win with him at the top of the ticket, not the least of which are three or four candidates for the US House who have an excellent shot at unseating obstructionist Repubs in my neck of the woods. They'll have no coattails and no shot if I have to spend my summer and fall on doorsteps trying to make excuses for the real Hillary. Those are facts NG and there's no way to get around them. Obama is the superior candidate and will make an excellent president. It's time to end this primary race and help Obama and the rest of our candidates get on with the general.

Another_Reader

I'm sorry, but if this doesn't take the cake for most pathetic and facetious argument of the week I don't know what would.

As I said above, one of the promises of his "new politics" is that he wouldn't engage in the practice of personal destruction--with no qualifications "unless someone attacks me first". Isn't it embarassing when he goes back on one of his major campaign promises?

This is akin to saying "your candidate has said he doesn't want to fight anyone, so aren't you embarrassed when he defends himself after getting punched in the stomach 10 or 11 times by my tough little fighter, god bless her?"

Look, Obama is running to change politics, but it doesn't change instantly or overnight or simply because one wishes that it would. And while Obama cannot claim to be perfect, at least he tries to change things.

Meanwhile, you're basically left with the Big Dog and HRC proudly claiming the mantle of dirtiest fighter in the race, and then saying it's unfair when the other guy fights back because he's not supposed to fight. Only we are -- we, the scrappy, poor, put-upon, shoestring-budget campaign with the picked-on girl leading it. We, the defenders of the old politics. We, the millionaire ex-Presidents, who think nothing of attacking candidates in our own party so long as it helps our quixotic quest to get back to that oval office.

Talk about embarrassing. Talk about what most sane people realize.

Character assassination: Making assertions or asking questions that are not backed up by a fair-minded reading of the available facts. Examples: The Clintons killed Vince Foster. John McCain fathered a black love child. Is Barack Obama is a crypto-Muslim who secretly hates America? These questions are illegitimate - they are not backed up by facts.

Not character assassination: Making assertions or raising questions that spring from a fair-minded reading of the facts. Examples: Hillary Clinton's resistance to releasing her tax returns raises troubling questions and makes it look like she has something to hide. A vote for John McCain this fall equals a vote to continue to occupy Iraq indefinitely. Why did Barack Obama choose to remain a member of his church if his pastor was engaging in crazy talk? All of these questions are legitimate. They spring from facts.

Stating that Obama's campaign is engaging in character assassination without examining the facts behind their assertions is poor critical thinking, and it cripples your entire argument.

Character assassination: Making assertions or asking questions that are not backed up by a fair-minded reading of the available facts. Examples: The Clintons killed Vince Foster. John McCain fathered a black love child. Is Barack Obama is a crypto-Muslim who secretly hates America?

Not character assassination: Making assertions or raising questions that spring from a fair-minded reading of the facts. Examples: Hillary Clinton's resistance to releasing her tax returns makes it look like she has something to hide. A vote for John McCain this fall equals a vote to continue to occupy Iraq indefinitely. Why did Barack Obama choose to remain a member of his church if his pastor was engaging in crazy talk?

Stating that Obama's campaign is engaged in character assassination without examining the facts behind their assertions is poor critical thinking, and it cripples your entire argument.

Another reader I can cut and paste too. Bill Clinton appointed her chair of the Rural Health Advisory Committee when he become governor in 1979. As First Lady of Arkansas, she chaired the Arkansas Educational Standards Committee from 1982 to 1992. She would have attained neither of those positions if not for the governor appointing her. She admittedly did some good in Arkansas but the state's healthcare and educational systems were so backward they had nowhere to go but up. Any Democratic governor who didn't remedy them would have been guilty of dereliction of duty and committing political suicide.

At the Rose Law Firm she rarely did trial work, but was considered a "rainmaker" at the firm for bringing in clients, partly due to the prestige she lent the firm and to her corporate board connections. Let's not even get into Walmart.

Her adult life has been one of special connections and privilege brought about by her relationship to the governor and then president. She had the talent and brains to make it on her own but the fact is she never did and never had to.

She and Bill have become people I don't even recognize anymore and I think would have repulsed their younger, more idealistic selves. I spent 15 years defending these two through all their travails but after what's come to light over the last few years, no more. They have convinced themselves that anything they do is a justified means to an end.

She isn't the cream rising to the top of the Democratic party, she's a candidate who is running an obsolete top down, highly leveraged, lobbyist & fatcat funded, campaign to the bitter end.

She can only damage herself and the party if she continues but from inside the Clinton bubble where they only see they've been able to overcome so much, a lot of it of their own making, I guess she just doesn't see it. And neither do you.

1) The muslim smear thing was right in the video. Maybe you think she answered it, but the fact that Mike Wallace had to ask her three times should indicate something about her answer was not sufficient. I saw the video and my instant reaction was shock. I think it was classical Clintonian plausible deniability. They go ugly and nasty, but in a deniable way -- unlike Rove who goes ugly in an obviousy way.

2) Obama was getting slammed by HRC and the media. The pundits all concluded that Obama needed to show he's tough and can hit back. So he did.