Starnge 3-Way - Clinton, Obama and Novak

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/washington/politics-usa-politics-obama-clinton.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Clinton Camp Fires Back Over Column

By REUTERS
Published: November 17, 2007
Filed at 5:50 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top Democratic rivals for president tore into each other on Saturday after a conservative columnist asserted front-runner Hillary Clinton claimed to have damaging information about Barack Obama.

The Clinton campaign denied the accusation, saying Obama's reaction to the vaguely worded column by Robert Novak played into Republican hands and showed the Illinois senator's lack of political savvy.

Obama's team later said they took the Clinton campaign at its word but bristled at the idea they fell for Republican tricks and should not have fought back against "smear politics" in the race for the presidency in the November 2008 election.

Clinton, a senator from New York and the wife of former President Bill Clinton, has been the target of frequent attacks by Obama and some of the other Democratic contenders for the White House over her ability to deliver straight answers.

Novak, a syndicated columnist, wrote:

:cry:

Obama's reaction to the whole situation has been a bit odd though. Unless he doesn't really know much about Novak and his roll as a RW go-to guy. I don't know. I just don't understand Obama's political calculus here.

Bob Novak, huh? Consider the source...

Dave Broder in 1987 looking back on the 1972 Ed Muskie "crying" implosion over attacks on his wife over "the Canuck letter":
It was not until seven months later, when Nixon was sailing toward a landslide victory over McGovern and Muskie was back tending to his Senate business, that the mystery began to unravel. Marilyn Berger, then a colleague at the Post, told me that Ken W. Clawson, a former Post reporter who had gone to work at the White House as deputy director of information, had told her that he was the author of "the Canuck letter.'
(...)
The coverage of the incident shows that when a reporter's information is incomplete, there is a great risk of misleading the reader. I put the Manchester speech into the context--accurately, I believe--of a campaign and a personality that were accessible to journalistic view. I did not put it into the context of campaign sabotage. Unwittingly, I did my part in the work of the Nixon operatives in helping destroy the credibility of the Muskie candidacy.


Digby:
Well, he can take some comfort that he wasn't alone, but it's not like it was the last time it happened. They may have been slightly chastened for a time, but the modern conservative movement's political arm comes directly out of the Nixon school. Bill Clinton and Al Gore were nearly destroyed by the same tactics, a bit more refined. But by that point the press shamelessly worked hand in glove with Republicans, often in the open, fully aware that they were helping them --- Broder included.

After years of this sort of politics, from Atwater to Rove, from Willie Horton to Swift Boats, it would be nice to think the mainstream media have learned from the past and will ensure that things like this are adequately examined within the context of history and not just the heat of the moment. But that's clearly too much to hope for.

Robert Novak was once a real journalist but after the events of the past few years, it's safe to say that he no longer can be considered anything but a Republican operative, specifically a Rove acolyte who basically works for him. He has more than proven his loyalty. This rumor, especially coming from him, should never have seen the light of day. MSNBC is running with the story like it's 9/11. It remains to be seen if it has any legs among the rest of the mainstream press. But I think it's fair to say that they will, at the very least, "store such incidents in minds and then use them to interpret major incidents when they occur."
***
The Democratic campaigns need to remember that they are battling not only the Republicans but the entire Village press. This little episode was badly handled and I would hope they get smart very quickly or they are going to making it much worse for themselves --- and the country.


Whole thing at:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/born-yesterday-by-digby-robert-novak.html

that maybe he had an affair? Come on! Is Hillary actually going to open that can of worms! it would come back and bite her big time. I think this is just Nofacts imagination at work.