Hillary Spokesperson Compares Obama To...Ken Starr!
Hillary spokesperson Howard Wolfson, on a conference call with reporters just now, drew an intriguing comparison between Obama and a somewhat-forgotten figure who is still deeply hated by Dems...
"When Senator Obama was confronted with questions over whether he was ready to be Commander-in-Chief and steward of the economy, he chose not to address those questions, but to attack Senator Clinton. I for one do not belive that imitating Ken Starr is the way to win a Democratic primary election for president."
Wolfson is referring to oblique references to Whitewater and other past Clinton stories that the Obama camp has made lately -- attacks Wolfson is trying to discredit by associating them with Starr's panty-sniffing inquisition.
That episode, of course, is a nightmare that's lodged deeply in the collective memory of Dem primary voters, and Ken Starr himself is perhaps almost as reviled by Dems as Arch Demon Karl Rove. Talk about throwing down the gauntlet.
Late Update: It's also worth asking whether this gambit is about reinforcing Hillary's bond with female voters by invoking Hillary's severe public humiliation at the hands of her husband and a prurient GOP and media.
Late Late Update: Obama spokesperson Bill Burton responds:
“It is absurd that after weeks of badgering the media to ‘vet’ Senator Obama, the Clinton campaign believes that they should be held to an entirely different standard. We don’t believe that expecting candidates for the presidency to disclose their tax returns somehow constitutes Ken Starr-tactics, but the kind of transparency and accountability that Americans are looking for and that’s been missing in Washington for far too long. And if Senator Clinton doesn’t think that the Republicans will ask these very same questions, then she’s not as ready to go toe-to-toe with John McCain as she claims.”
Comments (260)