This Is A Streetfight

So, yes, Clinton's fear-mongering and race-baiting and self-righteousness and double standards and self-comparisons to McCain over the last week offend me, too. But, Josh Marshall's got a point: You know what? Ice cream's fattening and we all die too. Get over it. This is about getting inside Obama's (the collective Obama, let's say) head, psyching him out, forcing mistakes and then going right back on the attack all over again. Getting the Obama folks pissed and gritting their teeth and off their game is precisely the point. The Obama folks can either withdraw to a world where the 'new politics' reigns or focus on the fact that here in the real world there are two 'old politics' practitioners standing between him and the presidency and he needs to decide how he's going to deal with that fact. Update: Then again, Jonathan Chait over at The New Republic unspools Clinton's claim that she's better prepared to withstand GOP attacks and lays out why her "Nixonian Ruthlessness" will ultimately do irreparable harm to Democratic chances in November.