Third Clintonite Goes After Obama’s Drug Use

Photo by Daniella Zalcman

There is no doubt now that the Clinton campaign has decided to make a major campaign issue of Obama’s decades-old personal behavior. Robert Johnson, the founder of BET, said this at a Clinton rally in South Carolina Sunday:

I am frankly insulted that the Obama campaign would imply that we are so stupid that we would think Hillary and Bill Clinton, who have been deeply and emotionally involved in black issues since Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood –­ and I won’t say what he was doing, but he said it in the book –­ when they have been involved.

So first you had Billy Shaheen basically calling Obama a drug dealer. Then Mark Penn sleazily dropping the c-word on "Hardball." Now Johnson. This is obviously not a series of accidents. This is the strategy.

Here’s the irony: by making Obama’s personal life a campaign issue, the Clintons are giving aid and comfort to the Richard Mellon Scaifes of the world, who for years have played the same dirty game. And in doing so, Bill and Hillary are spitting right in the face of those of us who defended them against those tactics. Every Democrat who has for 16 years insisted that personal behavior has no place in political debate is now made a fool. Unforgivable. Here’s Hillary just last February:

"I sure don’t want Democrats, or the supporters of Democrats, to be engaging in the politics of personal destruction," said Clinton. "I think we should stay focused on what we’re going to do for America."

I guess getting knocked off your inevitability perch in Iowa, barely squeaking out a win in NH and blowing most of your national lead makes the politics of personal destruction okay. Because I can’t see what Obama did as a teenager has to do with anything. This is very, very depressing.

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