Very telling that the Obama campaign is taking the high road on this, compared to the dishonest whining that the Clinton campaign produced last week, only to have this blow up in their face.

If you read the actual story, you'd see she passed it on to 5 people, including a Dodd operative who turned it in (who's playing dirty politics again?), with no comment. Sounds like more of a "look what's going around about Obama" type email forward. My feeling is that the Dodd guy who turned it in (yes he's named) is more likely to never work again then the Clinton employee, who probably was axed just so Clinton couldn't be tied to the scandal.

Geek, Esq. wrote on December 10, 2007 12:31 PM:

Very telling that the Obama campaign is taking the high road on this, compared to the dishonest whining that the Clinton campaign produced last week, only to have this blow up in their face.

LOL. Call me a cynic on this one. It is easy to take the "high road" when it also the politically smart thing to do. They do not wish to keep this in the news since, as much as this is a debunked story, there are elements out there that would still harbor lingering doubts about Barack Hussein Obama [doubts that the GOP smear machine would try to exploit should he be the nominee]. Better to let the story die by taking the "high road"...

DTM wrote on December 10, 2007 1:27 PM:

dcshungu,

Again, I would note that the "GOP smear machine" has been trying to "exploit" this line of attack for almost a year now. It hasn't worked, and there is no reason to believe it ever will.

And what is your point? This is NOT the general election so it does not matter what the GOP does not, does it? In fact, your contention that this has been "exploited" is just flat wrong. A right-wing rag affiliated with connection to the far-right Washington Times had initially put out the story, which was picked by Fox News, before it was immediately debunked by CNN and it went away until recently.

I will not argue with you about this. Those are the facts, you can manufacture yours if you wish.

dcshungu,

The facts are that versions of this e-mail have been circulating for about a year, and they have been discussed on various blogs. The story has been on Fox News, CNN, and the cover of the Washington Post. Despite all this, it has had no discernable effect. The logical explanation for why it has had no discernable effect is that the allegations in the e-mail are provably false, as CNN demonstrated.

Now, you apparently believe that somehow the GOP will succeed with this debunked line of attack once the general election starts, despite the complete failure of these efforts to accomplish anything so far. But that belief on your part is not a "fact". Indeed, at best your beliefs on this issue are unfounded conjecture, and at worst they are wishful thinking (I don't know you so I can't say which it is).

So what is the latest on the Novak report about.......you know.......that was dealt with so immediately, and so effectively, that it is dead and buried. Obama's people are aware of swiftboat blitzes, and handle them about like the political equivalent of Tom Brady.

The only possible reason to forward this kind of stuff is that in some sense you are trying to keep it alive. Now it may be the "once removed" version of this desire-- that is-- that you want to keep in people's minds that this is the kind of thing that can be used against Obama by Republitards, cf. DCshungu. But ultimately, it is no different than those who would seriously try to persuade with the material itself.

It is similar to me to those who won't vote for a black person because they think a black person is "unelectable," or that "the country is not ready." I've had enough of go-slow progressivism. It starts to look to me like a kind of cowardice.

bush-clinton-clinton-bush-bush-clinton
politics politics ride the machine!
Hill in '08 and Jeb in 16!
bush-clinton-clinton-bush-bush-clinton

The Dissembler:

By the way, while I haven't tried to count the number of comments on the subject here, I do know that a high percentage of them have been from you. You might wonder why so few people besides yourself take seriously your argument that this is a good reason not to vote for Obama. But again, the fact that almost no one else cares just shows how impotent this line of attack really is, whether it is coming from Republicans or you.

LOL. The only reason I seem to be the one bringing it up is because you keep trying to tell us that this story had been hyped while it has actually been relatively muted.

The GOP smear machine will bring it up. You can bet on that. Obama will Osama by the time they done. Don't be stupid because you are not. But it has never been within your nature to concede anything so we just need to wait and see (fortunately, Obama won't get that far, so we'll have to wait until 2016 to find out... Maybe by then, Osama would have been netted "dead or alive").