The Audacity of Earl, Part II

Ironically, Earl has asked me to "check the history" -- this coming in a post in which he flatly denies that the Hillary Clinton campaign has engaged in any of the mud-slinging that he anticipates Republicans will inflict on Barack Obama come the general election.

OK, Earl, let's check the history. Let's look at the specific examples of the "personal dirty stuff" you say the GOP will get into, and see just how clean the Hillary Campaign is. The following list of items comes, verbatim, from Earl's original post:

"(Republicans will) hammer (Obama) for his dealings with an indicted Chicago financier ..."

Just like Clinton did. Allow me to quote Hillary from the January 23 Democratic debate in Myrtle Beach:

"I was fighting against those ideas when you were practicing law and representing your contributor, Resco, in his slum landlord business in inner city Chicago."

"for possible conflict of interests in other financial dealings"

"Senator Obama has some questions to answer about his dealings with one of his largest contributors, Exelon, a big nuclear power company. Apparently he cut some deals behind closed doors to protect them from full disclosure in the nuclear industry."

--Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton, ABC-Politico Forum, Feb. 11

"and legislative votes ..."

Quoth Hillary, again from the Myrtle Beach Debate:

"This is kind of like the 'present' vote thing, because the Chicago Tribune, his hometown paper, said that all of those 'present' votes was taking a pass. It was for political reasons."

"and his fuzzy oftentimes contradictory statements and actions on the Iraq war and terrorism."

Here's Hillary on "Meet the Press" yesterday:

"And in Senator Obama's recent book, he clearly says he thought that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons, and that he still coveted nuclear weapons. His judgment was that, at the time in 2002, we didn't need to make any efforts. My belief was we did need to pin Saddam down, put inspectors in."

(Source: Clinton Smears Obama on Iraq — Again, Mother Jones, Feb. 18)

"Then there’s the ultimate ploy, the race card. The GOP hit squads will dig, sift and comb through every inch of his personal life and poke through his voting record to find any hint of personal or political muck."

Hmm, remember when the New York Times unearthed this e-mail from a Clinton campaign staffer to an old Obama associate in Chicago?

From: Bob Nash
To:
Sent: Sun Dec 09
Subject: BARACK

HOW ARE YOU ?? I AM FIGHTING HARD >
SECOND ARE YOU PEERSONALLYAWARE OF TH EWORK BARACK DID ON THE SOUTH
SIDE WITH COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION S , ETC ./. BOB
WHAT DI DHE DO AFORE HOW LONG AND WITH WHO ??
PLS TELL BOB HELLO BOB

Or what about this mysterious Web site, widely believed to be part of the Clinton dirt-digging apparatus?

I stand by my original post: The Clinton campaign has done all the supposedly dreadful things that Earl worries Republicans will do to Obama.

And, again, I've never heard him complain about it.