She went there

By Creature

Well, I guess the heat from Hillary's Bosnia lying was too much for her to take and it was time to get back to what really matters: Senator Obama's pastor. Today, after weeks of smartly choosing to watch from the sidelines, Hillary dove head-first into the Reverend Wright controversy with a line of attack that would make Limbaugh and Hannity proud.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, in a wide-ranging interview today with Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporters and editors, said she would have left her church if her pastor made the sort of inflammatory remarks Sen. Barack Obama’s former pastor made.

“He would not have been my pastor,” Clinton said. “You don’t choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend.” [. . .]

The Clinton campaign has refrained from getting involved in the controversy, but Clinton herself, responding to a question, denounced what she said was “hate speech.”

“You know, I spoke out against Don Imus, saying that hate speech was unacceptable in any setting, and I believe that,” Clinton said. “I just think you have to speak out against that. You certainly have to do that, if not explicitly, then implicitly by getting up and moving.”

If anyone doubted which road Hillary's been on to get to the White House, today it is clear, it's the low one.

Even Steve Benen, who's been almost painfully neutral in this race, has had enough.

It’s hard to overstate how disappointing this is. Clinton waited until the story had died down and then decided to make her first public comments on the controversy, going after Obama for staying with his church.

I know Clinton is willing to fight as hard as possible for his nomination, but tactics like these are pretty low.

Maybe this will finally push the superdelegates to end this race sooner, rather than handing John McCain the presidency (an outcome I'm no longer sure Hillary would dislike).

Update: Hillary dug in deeper with her Wright criticism at a presser later in the day. [via TPM]



(Cross-posted at State of the Day.)