As usual, Hendrik Hertzberg hits it right on the money with his new blog post <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/hendrikhertzberg/2008/04/after-pennsylva.html">AFTER PENNSYLVANIA (1)</a>. This and Tom Hayden's <a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080505/hayden">Why Hillary Makes My Wife Scream</a> puts to rest any idea Clinton would be immune from right-wing attacks.
The Clinton campaign sees itself as doing the Democrats a favor. By destroying Obama with Wright, bittergate, and Ayers, they're saving the party from itself. Under the guise of "toughening Obama up," they're trying to prove he's too far to the left to get elected in this country. In their mind, Clinton has been attacked so much any attack made against her has already been made.

The question is, has it? The answer is no. In both 2000 and 2006, the GOP fielded joke candidates against her for her Senate seat. The national Republican Party had other priorities than to try and win a Senate seat in blue-state New York and she got off relatively easy. However, given that "Hillary Clinton" came up only second to "Ronald Reagan" in the GOP debates in 2007, it's safe to assume they've been preparing for a bloody fight with her.

Among the items Hertzberg and Hayden bring up are her 1971 internship at the Oakland law firm of Treuhaft, Walker and Burnstein. To give you some facts:

<blockquote><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/hendrikhertzberg/2008/04/after-pennsylva.html">Treuhaft (Robert Treuhaft, husband of Jessica Mitford) had left the Communist Party thirteen years earlier, but Walker (Doris Walker) was still a member, and the firm was a pillar of the Bay Area Old Left.</a></blockquote>

<blockquote><a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080505/hayden">Hillary went to work for the left-wing Bay Area law firm of Treuhaft, Walker and Burnstein, which specialized in Black Panthers and West Coast labor leaders prosecuted for being communists. Two of the firm's partners, according to Treuhaft, were communists and the two others "tolerated communists".</a></blockquote>

This is just the tip of the iceberg. If Clinton is the nominee, Drudge is going to have a field day by leaking the cases the firm was involved with, the various statements of Doris Walker regarding the proletariat and making it seem Clinton was an integral part of the Black Power movement in Oakland.

That Clinton has the naivete to believe she can get help from Richard Mellon Scaife and expect it to last until the general should be enough for any superdelegate to conclude she's not capable of being the nominee (on Olbermann, Clinton laughed off his concerns about Scaife and, in an obvious mock of Obama, said she was <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/21/hillary-clinton-on-olberm_n_97884.html">bringing people together</a>). The reason the right-wing noise machine has been friendly to her recently is because they share the same goal-to beat Obama. Once that is done, their alliance is null and they will go after her.

Besides Treuhaft, Walker and Burnstein, there are plenty of other attacks. There is the rumor about her having a <a href="http://www.wallstreetfighter.com/2007/11/hillary-clintons-lesbian-affair-story.html">lesbian affair</a> with staffer Huma Abedin. There's Bill Clinton and the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/us/politics/31donor.html?_r=1&oref=slogin">Kazak Mining Deal</a>. And, even after 15 years, Vince Foster still generates <a href="http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=Vince+Foster&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8">430,000 hits on Google</a>.

What Clinton, her campaign, and her supporters need to understand is any Democrat will be smeared by the right. Nothing is sacred to them (Max Cleland and John Kerry can testify to that). They will take something, lie, exaggerate, blow it out of proportion and make even the most hard-working patriotic American look like an anti-American, Christian-hating terrorist. That's how they operate. By becoming there echo chamber (as the Clinton camp has done), you do yourself no favors and harm the Democratic party as a whole.

Can Obama survive their attacks? It is true he has made mistakes. However, the New York Observer put it the best:

<blockquote><a href="http://origin.observermediagroup.com/2008/g-o-p-just-doesn-t-get-obama">But Mr. Obama, in his life story, in his words and in his general bearing, inspires more voters than not to believe the best about him, a rare and potent trait that almost always separates the winners from the losers in presidential politics.</a></blockquote>

People genuinely believe Obama. That's why he won more delegates and move votes than Clinton. That's why his negatives are lower than hers. While he is not perfect-by his own admission-he knows how to take a hit and how to fight back.

The right will always question the patriotism of Democrats. They will always call Democrats elitist. They will stop at nothing to push their radical agenda. The way to beat them is not to prove you are as cruel and ruthless as they are. The only way we will defeat movement conservatism and bring about a better America is by putting forward our own agenda and by setting the tone of national dialogue. The best candidate to do that is Barack Obama.

<i>Crossposted at DailyKos:</i>
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/4/25/182540/882/520/501888