OH PLEASE, NOT AGAIN

Swill from Robert Novak:

Agents of Sen. Hillary Clinton are spreading the word in Democratic circles that she has scandalous information about her principal opponent for the party's presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama, but has decided not to use it. The nature of the alleged scandal was not disclosed.

This word-of-mouth among Democrats makes Obama look vulnerable and Clinton look prudent. It comes during a dip for the front-running Clinton after she refused to take a stand on New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's now discarded plan to give driver's licenses to illegal aliens.

Experienced Democratic political operatives believe Clinton wants to avoid a repetition of 2004, when attacks on each other by presidential candidates Howard Dean and Richard Gephardt were mutually destructive and facilitated John Kerry's nomination.

How many times are the right-wing sleazebags going to try to pull this kill-two-birds-with-one-stone stunt? How many times are they going to try to slander both Hillary and a Clinton opponent with one story? It's getting old, guys.

In January, rumors spread that Barack Obama had been educated in a madrassa -- and then we were told by right-wingers that Hillary Clinton's campaign was spreading the rumor. Last month, the mainstream press picked up a National Enquirer story claiming that John Edwards had had an affair on the campaign trail -- and then right-wingers (inspired by Drudge favorite the Politico) said the Clinton campaign was responsible for the story because the owner of the Enquirer is a Clinton backer. (In fact, the man in question actually owns less than 3% of the Enquirer, and it has run a number of nasty stories about the Clintons while he's owned a share.)

And now this. The right expect us to fall for this nonsense again?

(Via Digby.)

*****

UPDATE: Ah, the same old names keep coming back. The rumor that Clinton was behind the Edwards story came from Ben Smith at the Politico and was the gleeful obsession of Slate's Mickey Kaus. And now the people who are trying to give the Obama story legs include ... Ben Smith and Mickey Kaus. I hate these people.