Rose Brooks has an op-ed in L.A. Times about Hillary Clinton's attacks on Barack Obama:
With its efforts to paint Obama as a negative campaigner showing so little promise, the Clinton campaign is shifting to a new tack. Now it is going after Obama for having tried to be polite about an issue that's become one of Clinton's greatest liabilities.
That would be her October 2002 vote to authorize the use of force in Iraq.
First as I have noted, her vote is only a liability in her own party and she is absolutely right not to call the vote a mistake. (See here for my suggestion on what she should do). But Hillary is going to go negative against Obama's being polite? What kind of political world do we live in when being polite and respectful of another person is attacked?
Obama's relative inexperience in national politics has led many commentators to nickname him "Obambi." And it's true, in some ways, that Obama has been as naive as Disney's baby deer: A more seasoned (and cynical) politician might have realized that even his efforts to be gracious could someday be used against him.
But those eager to use "Obambi's" naivete against him should go rent the Disney film. In the movie, Bambi is challenged by privation, loss and a hostile rival, but he perseveres … and by the end of the movie, he's the new Prince of the Forest.
Hillary Clinton is hitting Obama hard and her surrogates are doing the same thing. But take notice that Obama may be hammering her on some things, for the most part he is staying out of the gutter. That probably doesn't suit the hard lefties, but for the majority of the Democratic party, it is playing well and could catapault him into the nomination.
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