'Full Frontal Assault'

The Clinton camp held a conference call today to discuss what they claim to be a 'full frontal assault' on Clinton's character waged by the Obama camp (referring to a conference call with reporters held by the Obama camp yesterday).

Roughly halfway through yesterday's Obama call, I recall turning to my colleague and pointing out, "David Plouffe (Obama's campaign manager) is starting to sound like Wolfson and Singer (Communications Director and Deputy, respectively, for the Clinton camp). "

On the call, David Plouffe (along with foreign policy and campaign advisor Greg Craig) raised questions about how trust worthy Clinton is in the context of her claims regarding 35 years of experience and her position on NAFTA. On Wednesday, the schedules of Clinton's years as First Lady were release from the William J. Clinton presidential library. The schedules indicated that Hillary's role on her trips abroad was largely ceremonial and that she sat in on 5 NAFTA meetings prior to NAFTA being passed.

The Clinton camp rebutted stating that the schedules should be used as a mere reference, but do not indicate the specific tasks that Hillary engaged (although they do tell us that she never sat in on any NSA briefings or State Dept. meetings). The Clinton camp also asserted that in 4 of the 5 meetings regarding NAFTA, that Hillary was "pushing back" on the passage of the trade treaty (makes you wonder what made her change her mind during the one meeting in which she supported NAFTA?).

The Obama camp raised these concerns in the call and circulated a fact check piece (per ABC's Jake Tapper) in which individuals were present during the NAFTA meetings recall, "There was no question that everyone who spoke including the First Lady was for NAFTA, it was a rally on behalf of NAFTA to help it get passed. It's unquestionable."

While this may seem like a reasonable question for the Obama camp to raise, it was unique for them to directly question the "trustworthiness" of Clinton.

When Singer and Wolfson cried foul, reporters jumped at the contradiction. "Are you saying you have run a more positive campaign then the Obama camp?" on asked.

Wolfson described Obama's pledged to run a positive campaign and pointed to the contradiction between Obama's message of 'Hope' and an alternative to the 'same old Washington style of politics' to the questions they were raising about Clinton's character.

Perhaps, Wolfson makes an apt contrast here, but let's be straight: the Clinton campaign has waged these character attacks on a daily basis for the last two months. Should we excuse the daily character attacks coming from the Clinton camp because Hillary has never made a pledged to avoid down and dirty Washington style politics and ridicule the Obama camp for echoing the style of the Clinton camp on one occasion?

The Obama campaigns response to the Saturday Clinton call:

Since the Clinton campaign had a news-less conference call, reiterating tired lines of attack with no basis in reality, instead of responding with a call of our own, we are going to give the press corps a break so that we can all enjoy this holiday weekend with our families and maybe even watch a little basketball.
~ Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.

You decide.

Listen to today's Clinton conference call here:


Listen to yesterday's Obama conference call here: