Low Road to Victory is the title of the editorial. This comes from the paper that once endorsed Senator Clinton saying:
As strongly as we back her candidacy, we urge Mrs. Clinton to take the lead in changing the tone of the campaign. It is not good for the country, the Democratic Party or for Mrs. Clinton, who is often tagged as divisive, in part because of bitter feeling about her husband’s administration and the so-called permanent campaign. (Indeed, Bill Clinton’s overheated comments are feeding those resentments, and could do long-term damage to her candidacy if he continues this way.)
This was published way back on January 25th, 2008. Well, it looks like Senator Clinton didn't take those words to heart. And the New York Times is calling her on it.
Voters are getting tired of it; it is demeaning the political process; and it does not work. It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election.
Yes, we are getting tired of it. And exit polls from Pennsylvania show two thirds blames Clinton for negative campaigning
While two-thirds of voters said Clinton attacked Obama unfairly, 50 percent also said Obama unfairly attacked Clinton. Both numbers were higher than in previous primaries overall -- by 16 points for Clinton and 12 for Obama -- reflecting the negative tone of the campaign's closing days.
The New York Times also picks up on that last minute 9/11, Osama bin Laden ad that harkens to Republican talking points.
On the eve of this crucial primary, Mrs. Clinton became the first Democratic candidate to wave the bloody shirt of 9/11. A Clinton television ad — torn right from Karl Rove’s playbook — evoked the 1929 stock market crash, Pearl Harbor, the Cuban missile crisis, the cold war and the 9/11 attacks, complete with video of Osama bin Laden. "If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen," the narrator intoned.
Combine this with the "Obliterate Iran" quote, and you have Clinton basically running as a Neocon lite.
If that was supposed to bolster Mrs. Clinton’s argument that she is the better prepared to be president in a dangerous world, she sent the opposite message on Tuesday morning by declaring in an interview on ABC News that if Iran attacked Israel while she were president: "We would be able to totally obliterate them."
Ouch. As each day goes by, she's losing more and more of her credibility in the Democratic party.
By staying on the attack and not engaging Mr. Obama on the substance of issues like terrorism, the economy and how to organize an orderly exit from Iraq, Mrs. Clinton does more than just turn off voters who don’t like negative campaigning. She undercuts the rationale for her candidacy that led this page and others to support her: that she is more qualified, right now, to be president than Mr. Obama.
And this comes AFTER her "victory" in Pennsylvania. It's a phyrric victory indeed.
UPDATE:
I wanted to see what the chatter on the news would be this am to this morning and of course the ever reliable Joe Scarborough weighs in. But what's interesting in this clip is that Joe seems to be implicitly endorsing Clinton by calling her his "girlfriend" and his "secret love"