Rough Stuff

To revise and extend my remarks on the "Hussein" factor from yesterday, I think part of my point would be that there's really no use in deploring somewhat underhanded attacks in the course of a primary campaign. Part of the idea of a primary is for the eventual winner to be someone who's tested. In those terms, I actually think the race thus far has been too nice in a lot of ways. There's a lot more stuff about Barack Obama's Afrocentric church that the Republican Party is virtually certain to use against him if he becomes the nominee, so under the circumstances I'd sort of prefer to have Hillary Clinton's people bring it up and see if Obama can perform well in the midst of the "freak show".

Similarly, I've heard it said that so much shit's already been slung in Hillary Clinton's direction that the American people have already heard it all and won't be further impressed by anything they hear. I think that's a bit naive. Relatively few people remember, for example, when Bill Clinton pardoned some Puerto Rican terrorists in the midst of her 2000 Senate campaign, but I'm pretty damn sure the RNC research team remembers. I don't want to dwell on this sort of thing, personally, but insofar as I think it's bound to get dwelled on sooner or later, I'd tend to vote for "sooner" as the best time to hear about it all.