Clinton campaign launches a preemptive attack
Hillary Clinton's campaign has reveled in throwing Barack Obama's "politics of hope" line back in his face. For months, the slightest quibble raised by him about her has led to one of her army of aides to declare, in essence: See, he's just like those nasty politicians he decries.
Hours before tonight's face-off in Philadelphia among the Democratic presidential contenders on MSNBC, a key Clinton associate is at it again -- this time using the phrase to depict Obama and John Edwards as hypocrites.
Attention is focused on the upcoming debate largely because of Obama's pledge, via a Sunday New York Times story, that he would become more confrontational with Clinton (as one wag put it after the piece appeared, "Obambi no more"). The Times' Robin Abcarian examined Obama's current campaign style here the other day.
Also, Edwards -- who did not hesitate to spar with Clinton during a debate about a month ago in New Hampshire -- signaled in a speech Monday that he would again take her on.
In response, Mark Penn, Clinton's controversial chief strategist, earlier today sent an e-mail memo to "interested parties" (i.e., the media), that seeks to turn the tables on his candidate's two rivals.
Penn's memo begins: "There’s been a lot of chatter lately about the 'politics of hope.' But what does the term mean? What are the 'politics of hope?' "
His answer, none too surprisingly, is that ...
it's been demonstrated by what Clinton has been up to. This includes, Penn asserts, detailing "her plan for ending the war in Iraq;" outlining "a healthcare plan that provides coverage for all Americans;" discussing "how she would use aggressive diplomacy to avert war and deal with Iran."
Of course, lots of folks who have nothing to do with Obama or Edwards or any other presidential contender have questioned whether Clinton has been anything but vague about how she would untangle the Iraq mess, whether her healthcare plan would accomplish what she says it would and whether she has been overly supportive of Bush administration policy toward Iran.
Penn, however, doesn't want to go there. Instead, his aim is to scold Obama and Edwards (noting that the latter "rose to prominence" when he ran for the White House in the 2004 campaign "by eschewing attacks on other Democrats."
Writes Penn: "Considering that both [Obama and Edwards] made their names by pledging to be positive, the last thing one would have expected was for either of them to go out and announce with pride that they were now going to go negative on a fellow Democrat. It’s unprecedented in my experience."
Oh, we doubt that. But if, in fact, Obama and Edwards do attempt to turn up the heat on Clinton tonight, expect to hear a barrage of this sort of [mock] outrage from Camp Clinton.
-- Don Frederick
Andrew Malcolm's immigrant parents repeatedly stressed the importance of active participation in a democracy. Early lessons included learning the alphabetical list of states by watching televised roll calls of national political conventions. That childhood exposure led to a lifelong fascination with politics, including 40-plus years of covering them and a brief stint practicing them as press secretary to Laura Bush in 1999-2000. A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.
Johanna Neuman is a veteran Washington correspondent for both The Los Angeles Times and USA Today, having covered presidents and politics as far back as Ronald Reagan. A former president of the White House Correspondents Assn., she authored a book on media and foreign policy, “Lights, Camera, Wars.” Most recently she was co-author of the 
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