The Clinton campaign's circulation of right-wing materials to denigrate a top Obama advisor reeks of cynicism.
By Joe Conason
March 28, 2008 | Over the past few months, the emotional trajectory of the Democratic presidential primary has dropped precipitously, from inspiring to enervating, turning into a chronicle of petty sniping and amplified nastiness that will harm the party, the nation and the eventual nominee. Neither side is innocent of driving the discourse downward -- and everyone observing the process knows that both sides have crossed lines of decency and decorum, whether by accident or design.
Having watched many nasty political campaigns, however, including some far worse than this one, I tend to discount the constant hysteria over "dirty tactics" that is now background noise in almost every election. But Hillary Clinton's campaign crossed a symbolic boundary this week when its operatives sent around clips from the notoriously Clinton-hating extreme-right press to denigrate Barack Obama and his advisors. It was slightly eerie to watch those items arrive in the mailbox along with photos of Sen. Clinton at an editorial meeting of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review -- where she was seated next to that newspaper's owner, a certain Richard Mellon Scaife.
Although the reported encounter between Scaife and Clinton was mildly startling, it represented normal political behavior and nothing remarkable. Actually, they have even met before at least once, when the right-wing billionaire attended a White House dinner for donors to the Executive Mansion's beautification fund on Jan. 21, 1998 -- the same day that the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke on the front pages. (Clinton describes their encounter on the receiving line that night rather acidly in her autobiography, "Living History.")
Clinton did not look happy to be meeting him again in Pittsburgh, but his newspaper there boasts a circulation of about 150,000 on weekdays and nearly 200,000 on Sundays -- which means that any candidate is likely to respond to an invitation from its editorial board. One of Clinton's best qualities is her fearlessness, and it is hard to imagine her shrinking from the challenge of a meeting with Scaife and his staff. She may well have felt that in the presence of the man who had more or less accused her of conniving in the death of Vince Foster, she clearly held the moral high ground.
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http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2008/03/28/clinton_scaife/