by Mike Dorning
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa–The two leading Democratic presidential campaigns clashed on Saturday as Barack Obama accused rival Hillary Clinton of spreading unfounded innuendo about him while Clinton advisers suggested he had naively allowed himself to be baited by a Republican-leaning journalist.
The catalyst was a column published Saturday by conservative journalist Robert Novak that reported Clinton “agents” are “spreading the word in Democratic circles that she has scandalous information” about Obama but that the former first lady had “decided not to use it” against him. Novak said in his column that he was not able to determine the nature of the alleged scandalous information.
The column quickly stirred an outraged statement from Obama e-mailed to reporters, saying the report was “devoid of facts, but heavy on innuendo and insinuation of the sort to which we’ve become all too accustomed in our politics these past two decades.”
Noting that Novak was preparing his column “at the very same time” that Clinton was complaining about “mud-slinging” by other candidates at Thursday’s Democratic debate, he said, “In the interest of our party, and her own reputation, Senator Clinton should either make public any and all information referred to in the item, or concede the truth: that there is none.”
“She of all people, having complained so often about ‘the politics of personal destruction,’ should move quickly to either stand by or renounce these tactics,” Obama said.
The Clinton camp then criticized Obama’s reaction, arguing that he was too quick to believe the worst about the former first lady and it showed inexperience on his part.
“A Republican-leaning journalist runs a blind item designed to set Democrats against one another. Experienced Democrats see this for what it is. Others get distracted and thrown off their games,” Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said in a statement.
“We have no idea what Mr. Novak’s item is about and reject it totally,” Wolfson added.
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Later, the Obama camp released a statement from campaign manager David Plouffe accepting the Clinton campaign’s explanation but arguing that Obama was right to respond aggressively to innuendo against him.
“The Clinton campaign has admitted that they do not possess the ‘scandalous information’ in question and we take them at their word. But what we don’t accept is their assertion that this is somehow falling for Republican tricks,” Plouffe said.
“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.”