A little more information today on yesterday's item, concerning whether the Clinton campaign has some dirt on Barack Obama.
Note that the Obama campaign is not happy: "If the purpose of this shameless item was to daunt or discourage me or supporters of our campaign from challenging and changing the politics of Washington, it will fail," an Obama campaign statement said. The statement also called on Clinton to respond, saying, "Senator Clinton should either make public any and all information referred to in the item, or concede the truth: that there is none."
(This could actually be a godsend to the Obama campaign, if this whole thing makes Clinton look bad.)
Note how at first the Clinton campaign used a non-denial of Novak's story: "The Clinton campaign responded by saying, "Once again Obama is echoing Republican talking points."
In another story, Clinton's people do deny it: "Clinton spokesman Jay Carson said "we have absolutely no idea what he's talking about. ... We have no contact with Bob Novak; we have no idea what this column is based on." Asked if the campaign had any secret information about Obama, he said, "No. No, we don't."
Which led Obama's spokesman to say: "The Clinton campaign has admitted that they do not possess the scandalous information in question and we take them at their word," he said in a statement. "But what we don't accept is their assertion that this is somehow falling for Republican tricks. This is exactly the kind of smear politics Democrats need to fight back on, regardless of the source or the party. Democrats should know that when Barack Obama is their nominee, he will not allow the Swift boat politics of fear and diversion to prevail in this campaign."
Note one other thing: Robert Novak is a good reporter, who wrote what he did because somebody connected to Clinton told him something.
