Now that Sidney Blumenthal of the Clinton campaign has been "outed" for sending six months' worth of blast emails attacking Barack Obama, here are some questions that Hillary Clinton might be asked (but probably won't be):

As a recc'd diary here notes, over at HuffPo, Peter Dreier takes a comprehensive look at the sad story of how Sidney Blumenthal is using the "vast right-wing conspiracy" to attack Barack Obama's character. Ironically, Blumenthal, who was a Clinton White House staffer and is now a pro-Clinton journalist, has documented how the very same right-wing network tried to destroy Bill Clinton during the 1990s on both paper and film.

Under no circumstances was I going to vote for any Democratic Presidential candidate who voted for the ill-fated Iraq War Resolution. Even, if it meant that another tired-looking, middle-aged Republican was going to occupy the White House for another 4 years. I couldn't understand that 77 United States Senators, with sparkling credentials could be duped by a faux-Texan who invaded Iraq, not just for oil, but to avenge an assassination attempt on his father. How stupid can 77 people be? One, can suggest that the individuals who voted for this war were either blinded by blatant jingoism or scared of being labeled unpatriotic. I could think of nothing more patriotic than standing proud and tall in the United States Senate and voicing concerns for the war and demanding fellow citizens that they had a responsibility to stop this war before it even started. Yet, only one person brave enough to do that, while his other colleagues just sat in their seats with their thumbs up their asses. Robert Byrd gets ridicule for sounding like a pathetic old fart and having been a past member of the KKK, but on that day, he proved to me what it really means to be patriotic.    

As usual, Hendrik Hertzberg hits it right on the money with his new blog post AFTER PENNSYLVANIA (1).  This and Tom Hayden's Why Hillary Makes My Wife Scream puts to rest any idea Clinton would be immune from right-wing attacks.

If there was no other reason for Hillary Clinton to withdraw from the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, it's the pain folks like me are feeling at the gasoline pump.
I just got home from filling my gas tank, and the same about half a tank worth of gas for my Toyota that cost about $18 or so about a month ago now costs $28.25.
I'm not saying that Hillary's to blame for my gasoline pain, but does she really think that continuing her futile push toward the presidency is going to help ease my pain?
More below.

The Clintons are big on loyalty. Their court jester ( or is he the idiot of their village? the flying monkey of their Oz?other ideas?) James Carville famously called Gov. Richardson a Judas because he dared to endorse Obama over Clinton. So, how loyal have the Clintons been ? No group stuck with the Clintons more consistently than the African-American community through the dark days of the Impeachment witch hunt. Clinton had their near unanimous support , and it played an important role in saving his Presidency.

James Clyburn (D-SC) is the Majority Whip, the Third  Ranking member of the House Leadesrhip. He is also the highest ranking African-American in Congress. Still officially uncommitted in the Primary, Clyburn says that

black people are incensed over all of this.

That is, the behavior of Bill Clinton in South Carolina.

He let it rip in an interview with the NYTimes:

When he was going through his impeachment problems, it was the black community that bellied up to the bar. I think black folks feel strongly that that this is a strange way for President Clinton to show his appreciation.

The Jed Report provides a fuller backstory and explains how this links to Hillary Clinton

This story was written by Ari Berman at The Nation

Republicans are sharpening their knives against Barack Obama. No smear is too insignificant to broadcast. According to Time Magazine's Michael Scherer, Floyd Brown, the creator of the infamous Willie Horton ad--credited with sinking Michael Dukakis's candidacy in 1988--is launching a new ad campaign against Obama.

The ad, set to run in North Carolina, all-but accuses Obama of murder.

(Cross-posted at The Jed Report.)

During the 1990s, ultra-conservative Pennsylvania billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife funded what Hillary Clinton called a "vast right-wing conspiracy" to destroy her husband’s presidency.

Now, one decade after Scaife’s operation nearly removed her husband from office, Hillary Clinton has reached a rapprochement with the reclusive owner of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Last weekend Hillary Clinton accepted Scaife’s endorsement in the Pennsylvania primary, offered in the pages of the Tribune-Review. She had pursued the endorsement since last month, earning it after sitting down with Scaife and publicly attacking Barack Obama for attending Trinity United Church of Christ.

Or life in Pennsyltucky.  Is everyone thinking about us?  I just don't know what is going to happen.  I
was at the Obama office in my town just now and met Bob Casey and Harris Wofford.  They are going around pumping the volunteers up for a last minute push in canvasing.  Bob Casey has to have an impact.  He is the only major candidate who is working hard for Obama.  He is everywhere with him, which
is significant. Casey is very popular with the blue-collar guy; he won in 2006 by 60/40 over Santorum.  As for me, I think he is the picture of calm dedication.

Just one more reason to support Barack Obama's nomination.http://news.aol.com/...

Okay, this is just getting sad. Here's the title of one of the most Recommended diaries over at MyDD:

Pittsburgh Tribune Endorses Hillary !!!

Why, you may ask, is this sad? Well, as many here already know, this is the money-losing, vanity newspaper of Richard Mellon Scaife, one of the principle patrons of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy that worked to bring down Bill Clinton.

Why in the world would MyDD want to trumpet this endorsement? Probably because Barack Obama has received the endorsement of the vast majority of major newspapers in Pennsylvia:

I'm flabbergasted. It appears that Senator Clinton has made a deal with the devil.

Everyone knows that Clinton recently said "He would not have been my pastor" -- trying to stir up the whole Jeremiah Wright thing again, but most people don't know that those words were spoken in an interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, a newspaper owned by Richard Mellon Scaife.  Scaife himself was in the room during that interview.

First Hillary sits down with the architect of "the vast right wing conspiracy" in an attempt to reinject the Wright issue into the news.

Then PA Governor Ed Rendell, a strong supporter & prominent surrogate of the Clinton campaign, appeared on Fox News' morning show "Fox & Friends" and praised the network for its "objective" and "balanced" coverage!

And now CNN's immigration bigot Lou Dobbs is defending her too: "I dont recall a race in which we had seen such transparent favoritism" to Obama.

Combine that with Hillary & Bill running around saying only she and John McCain are qualified  or patriotic enough to be president (here and here) and it's not surprising that some are starting to be confused about which party's nomination Senator Clinton is running for.

Let me reassure everyone. Hillary Clinton is not a Republican. As far as I know.

(Details & videos after jump)

After months of huffing and puffing to blow down the House of Obama and without inflicting the damage she intended, Hillary has at last achieved something.  The House of Obama is still standing, but some of the shutters are down and more will fall, if we fall for any more tricks.  

There has been a shift over the weekend, you see it in hundreds of comments and in blogs, on political sites, in articles by journalists and editors published on Real Clear Politics.  All of a sudden, Hillary should stay in the race.  It's only democracy, the democratic way, that she does.  We have been unfair. She has every right.  Obama doesn't have the 2024 he needs to win, any more than she does. Howard Dean himself was dumbfounded when Leahy asked her to get out.  This thing must run its course, all the way to Denver if necessary.  Every vote counts, that's what America is about.  What's the matter with everyone, we are democrats!

What if there was a right-wing organization founded and operated by neoconservatives and funded in large part by Richard Mellon Scaife (and some of the other usual suspects) whose purpose was to attack religious denominations, congregations and church leaders who support what the right-wing views as "liberal" causes such as social justice, particularly if they embrace a liberation theology ?

What if that right-wing organization's tactics included smearing its targets with selective quotations or misquotes intended to distort and inflame?

What if the trail of those smears (picture if you will the slime trail of a slug) often led from this type of faux religious organization to the right-wing blog-patch, from there to the right-wing (F&B) media , and from there to the rest of the media and into our homes?

That Politics makes strange bedfellows is axiomatic and hardly worth noting anymore; but in the following story  Hillary's bedfellow isn't strange but positively twisted, and proves that whatever moral center Hillary may have ever had, she's lost it utterly in her increasingly desperate quest to be the nominee.

strong words, I know, but consider this and draw your own conclusions.  At first it seems innocous enough; an account Hillary taking a meeting with a Pennsylvania newspaper's editorial board and leaving them impressed:

Hillary Clinton walked into a [our] conference room last Tuesday to meet with some of the newspaper's editors and reporters and declared, "It was so counterintuitive, I just thought it would be fun to do."

Unremarkable if theThe newspaper wasn't the Pittsburgh Tribune review and this article wasn't written by, Richard Mellon Scaife

yes THAT Richard Mellon Sciafe, and the name rings no (alarm) bells to you read on,  If it does, you might want to pause here for the sake of your stomach's contents:

This is a man who, by all accounts, was one of the biggest critics of the Clinton administration and Hillary now has his admiration. A man that spent years and millions trying to destroy her husband's presidency. Now, out of convenience, she makes peace with him.

She needs his endorsement real bad and is willing to make a deal with the right wing devil.

She's willing to forget all those vitriolic attacks, because this makes sense for her viability.

I said it before and I'll say it again, Hillary R. Clinton is a Republican.

Her actions during this campaign and those of her husband leave no doubt.  

I know Hillary wants all the friends she can get in Pennsylvania for the next few weeks, but this makes my skin crawl just a bit.

http://pittsburghlive.com/...

Right Wing benefactor/publisher Richard Scaife said, in a front page column and multi-media presentation this morning, that he has "changed his mind" about Hillary after his editorial board meeting with her, although he is "not yet" ready to endorse her.  Look at the videos as well as the column.