Clinton Camp: Obama Throwing Bombs

In a conference call today, among other things, top Clinton adviser Phil Singer had this characterization of Barack Obama's recent campaign tactics:

"The Obama campaign is throwing as many bombs as possible."

It was a remarkable characterization from a campaign that has been throwing at Obama, in the words of Keith Olbermann, among others, "Everything but the kitchen sink." To me, the word choice was equally stunning in the context of email smears that have been going around about Senator Obama alleging that he's some sort of closet jihadist, and Senator Clinton's open-ended denial that Obama is a Muslim, "as far as I know."

Is this another coded message to the xenophobe demographic, or just an unfortunate choice of words? And just what are these "bombs" that Obama is throwing? Is McCain Commander-in-Chief material or not? All that and more after the jump.

Let's get to those "bombs" first. Phil Singer and Howard Wolfson were referring mainly to an Obama campaign conference call from yesterday, demanding that the Obama camp release the audio. You can download that call here.

They started out by saying that the Obama campaign had been attacking Hillary's character, and were not running the type of campaign they had promised. They cited attacks on Clinton's NAFTA positions, the Iraq war, and the photo that was released of Reverend Jeremiah Wright shaking hands with Bill Clinton in 1998.

Those "personal attacks" seem more to me like two policy differences and a response to a smear. None of it resembled an attack on Hillary's character. So, I asked if they could explain how these were character issues. "They were attacking her veracity, her truthfulness about these issues, that she'll say anything to win...They did everything but call her a liar."

I followed up by asking if these weren't, indeed, the same tactics that they were using. They restated Obama's pledge to run a clean campaign.

"Let me see if I understand this. You say that the Obama campaign had promised to run a certain kind of campaign, and you have not, so that makes it OK for you to use these tactics, but not them?", I asked.

Wolfson replied, "I'm not saying it's not OK, I just think it should be reported."

Consider it done. The Obama campaign is...campaigning.

I also asked, "Senator Clinton has made the case that she, '...believes that she has passed the Commander-in-Chief threshold, ' and I quote, 'I know John McCain has..' When John McCain runs that quote in a campaign ad in November, how do you plan to counter that?"

I had to ask several follow-ups, as they first repeated an answer from Thursday's call about contrasting with McCain's 100 year plan for Iraq, so I asked how it makes sense, then, if McCain's Iraq policy is such a disaster, how they could support the statement that he "certainly has" passed the Commander-in-Chief test. This was their Final Answer:

John McCain can be trusted to continue the Iraq War, Hillary can be trusted to end the war, and Senator Obama cannot.

Still doesn't explain how McCain passes the test, but after three swings at it, I was pretty sure they werenever going to make contact. It wouldn't do to have them say, "Well, she said it just to help her win."

I will give them credit for finally coming out and saying Obama is not ready, rather than passive/aggressively urging us to "ask him."

The Obama campaign declined to comment on the "bombs" remark, but released this statement in response to the conference 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," said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.