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Since the story broke, one thing has stuck out in my mind. They sat on it. For almost a week, they sat on the reocrding of Senator Obama's original comments. Why? Why not go public with them as soon as they had them? I can only conclude that they saw a risk in using them.
And interestingly, Friday was not shaping up to be a very good day for Hillary. There were three big negative stories for team Clinton.
There was the video of Hillary ineffectually trying to dodge the Colombia question. It was almost painful to watch as she laughed for far too long, laughed a little bit longer, scrambled to come up with something, but could only pretend it wasn't a legitimate question. It could have been a campaign ender.
Then there was Former President Bill Clinton's "I don't steal cars" comment. He's been dancing dangerously close to race-baiting (to put it in the mildest terms I can) since South Carolina, and this is more of the same. Oh sure, maybe he's got plausible deniability, but this was not going to go unnoticed. Not after so many other questionable comments.
And lastly, Bill did a lot of dizzying spinning of the whole Bosnia sniper business, bringing a mostly forgotten Clinton fuck-up back to the forefront of the debate. Of course, he was trying to cover one big lie with several smaller ones, so the only thing he really accomplished was keeping Clinton brand dishonesty on everyone's minds.
On Friday, the Clinton campaign needed something, anything, to take the focus off of them on what may have been the worst of many bad days on this campaign. And wouldn't you know it, something turned up. Something a week old. Something that ended up being not nearly as bad as it was made out to be. Something that some people think may very well come back to bite Hillary on the ass.
Because after all, by clinging to this manufactured outrage, Clinton and McCain (who, interestingly, seem to be more on the same page with each passing day) are only serving to illustrate what has been one of Barack Obama's key points throughout his campaign. You know how he says that the American people are sick of "the same old politics" and "the politics of division"? Senators McCain and Clinton have just given him the perfect example to point to.
And Obama is right. We are sick of it.
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