Yeah, I said it. And dammit - he should too!
Last cycle around, Leiutenant "I bored you to death before I bored myself to death" Kerry provided a glaring example of why personal attacks cannot be left unresponded to. That taking the high road leads to the off-ramp of elections. By the time he responded to the scurrilous attacks levelled at him they had taken such a hold in the public eye that it torpedoed him more effectively than his own innanity could ever have accomplished.
Obama clearly learned from this, as did the Clintons. In that respect, their strategy is masterfull.
The mastery is that by forcing Obama to respond they have thrown him off message. By forcing him to respond they lower him into their own gutter. By forcing him to respond, they force him to engage in the worst sort of politics that the man is clearly trying to transcend, but has found himself unable to avoid in the face of the tag-team duos spurious allegations. They knew he would have to. They knew it.
Have an opponent making headway with independants and Republicans? Call his advertizement asking for his supporters of all affiliations to come to his side to be a base request for Republicans to loan him their votes for a day. Can't have a REAL uniter in the party after all.
Get taken to task for your corporate affiliations? State that your opponent was "spending his time defending a slum lord" over five hours of time spent on a contract when a junior lawyer in a large firm. Yep, five hours of assigned work as stacked up to a board position. Clearly comparable.
Organizing your own election irregularities? Allude to "overhearing conversations" in a casino hallway over supposed irregularities by your opponent, and offer them up without an iota of evidence.
It, like the Swift Liars, goes towards that age-old political precept. Take an ounce of truth, and add a ton of fertilizer to entirely change the perceived context of the thing.
It is politically masterfull in that it just might work for the Clintons. They, at least, may just find themselves winners out of all of this.
From the perspective of the party, however, it further lowers their standing in a climate where the public is already becoming disillusioned with the Democrats ability to affect real change given the lack-lustre results from the majority given to them in the Senate. A vote for Hillary does seem to be a vote for the continuation of Rovian politics.
I bet that Obama never thought in a million years that it would be his own party taking a crack at swift-boating him. And goddam it, that is EXACTLY how he should say it when next he has to dedicate a portion of his stump speech responding to whatever the next wave of ex-Presidential (not to mention ex-gentlemanly) utterances shall be.
John Kerry served honourably in the brown-water navy, and got nailed on it nonetheless. The brown substance that Barrack is finding himself swimming these days in sure ain't water, and the tactics of his opponents is no more appealing.