There are two things ridiculously wrong with Democratic contender Barack Obama's complaint at the annual meeting of the Associated Press that Clinton is using GOP dirty tactics against him that will be used against him when he's the nominee. The first is his smug assumption that the GOP will use these tactics against him in the fall. It's not his assumption that they'll use the tactics against him that's ridiculous, they will. It's his self-coronation as the Democratic presidential nominee.
But that's a minor point. It's his umpteenth finger point at Clinton for being the Democratic version of the GOP smut machine while playing the role of the blameless, helpless, agrieved victim that's ridiculous. Obama has taken the same GOP playbook that he reams Clinton for tearing big pages from and subtly worked it like a fine tuned Stradivarious. Then he uses the old CIA tactic of plausible deniability when his or a team Obama member's thumb print turns up on the playbook. The man that made this possible was former Bush political massager Karl Rove.
In the early Democratic presidential debates, Obama was the model of personal and political decorum. He and Clinton pounded Bush's failed and flawed policies on Iraq, the economy, and health care. A civil debate in which the top Democrats focused soley on the GOP's foibles set off loud bells and whistles among Rove and the GOP hit teams. If it kept up, and the Democrats were able to channel the frustration and anger of millions of voters at the GOP, the party would stand about as much chance of keeping the White House as someone had of winning the lottery without buying a ticket. Enter Rove and the hit teams.
In his infamous very open memo to Obama on how to beat Hillary of December 2, 2007, Rove gave Obama these hit points to pound Clinton:
"Be scrapping and fighting"
"Sharpen your attacks and make them more precise"
"focus on the fact that many Democrats have real doubts about Hillary"
"when you create controversies do not pick issues where you are playing the weaker hand"
"Taking her down a few notches is step one"
"find a way to gently belittle her blow the whistle on her when she tries to become a victim. Do it with humour and a smile and it will sting even more"
"She is beatable but you have to raise your game"
In other words BO forget the real issues that millions wanted to hear Democrats talk about and don't just go negative, but go gutter. In quick order, the issue no longer became Bush's stupendous bumbles and fumbles, deceptions, corruption, character, and voter polarizing but Hillary (and Bill's) alleged fumbles and bumbles, deceptions, corruption and character, and voter polarizing. All the shop worn, worked over hit themes that the GOP had elevated to a fine art against the Clintons were now sneakily, and sometimes openly, trotted out by Team Obama. They were blindly picked up an spewed out by Obama backers so often that they have practically become Papal cannon. Here's a choice sampling of the most popular anti-Clinton bash lines.
"Disingenuous"
"Too
polarizing to win"
'Divisive'
"Untruthful"
"Dishonest"
'Calculating'
"Saying
and doing whatever it takes to win"
"Attempting
to deceive the American people"
"One
of the most secretive politicians in America"
"Literally
willing to do anything to win"
"Playing
politics with war"
This was the tame stuff compared to what's on t he back pages of the GOP playbook. That's where the real sleaze bag stuff is from running misleading, even blatantly false ads, negative mailers, and the use of swift boat type surrogates to mangle and malign facts, and then mount a full press candidate character assassination. Team Obama's false health care ads, the distortion of Clinton's war authorization votes, and trashing of her voting record on key issues are pages torn straight out of that section of the GOP playbook. Then when the opponent (Hillary in this case) hits back with the real facts paint her as devious, a whiner, and, better still, a dirty political pool player. Then the rare times that a Team Obama member says or does something that's such an outrageous over the top verbal assault on Clinton that it can't be ignored give them the swift boot. This allows Team Obama to again mount their high horse, and self-righteously claim they our political Mother Teresa's, of course, in stark contrast to the conniving, double dealing Clinton.
Obama and Clinton have piled the dirt so high and the corrosion so thick on each other that it makes Obama's prophecy that the GOP playbook that he at times used against Clinton will be (with more pages added) used against him if he's the Democrat's eventual go to guy a certainty. He can't blame Hillary for that.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).