Yesterday, one of Barack Obama's advisers resigned after calling Hillary Clinton a "monster." There's been considerable speculation about whether or not Hillary is in fact a monster, but that's another topic for a different day.
The real point is the breathtaking double standard at work here. In the past week, Hillary Clinton has said that Barack Obama is not qualified to be president (but John McCain is), implied on 60 Minutes that he might be a Muslim when she knows very well that he is a Christian, said that his campaign was talking saying one thing to Americans but another to foreigners when her own campaign was guilty of at least the same level of contact with the Canadians, derided his supporters as living in a fantasy land, called him a plagiarist while doing the same thing herself, claimed he has nothing to his resume but a speech, and gone on a 90 second rant directed towards him about a mailer.
On Thursday, her top communications guy, Howard Wolfson said Barack Obama was acting like Ken Starr for pressing the Clintons to release their tax returns from 2001-present.
Ken Starr is an odious man who put us in the position of needing to defend Bill Clinton's presidency to our friends and family during impeachment. The impeachment was of course totally unwarranted, but my lord, have we forgotten that as vile as the Republican behavior was, the President's behavior was not that of a choir angel.
In any even, in my view, comparing Barack Obama to Ken Starr is sort of like comparing Barack Obama to pure evil.
So the question is: should Howard Wolfson be fired?
The issue really isn't that he said something mean about Barack Obama. Obama's plenty tough -- he can handle that.
Rather, should Wolfson be fired for incompetence? After all, it can't be a good idea to remind everybody about Bill Clinton's Oval Office affair with a White House intern.
Can it?
© Jed Lewison