Blackening Obama

As the polls dwindle down, Hillary Clinton's supporters are performing what they delicately call "the political equivalent of a proctology exam on the opposition" by pelting Barack Obama with slime and hoping some of it will stick.

Twisting old news about real estate deals, drug use and (shades of Nixon) slush funds into attacks on his character that might make Karl Rove blush, they are topping it off with accusations that Obama's campaign is importing college students to vote illegally in the Iowa caucuses.

A Clinton national co-chairman is spreading word about possible problems from Obama's youth that Republicans could use if he is the Democratic nominee.

"It'll be, 'When was the last time? Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?'" he told the Washington Post. "There are so many openings for Republican dirty tricks"

Meanwhile, the "Hillary is 44" attack crew is dredging for every bit of gossip about "Obama’s myriad real estate deceptions and transactions" and other alleged "lies."

Conservative smearmaster Robert Novak is helping stir the pot. Last month he provoked a Clinton-Obama spat with a report that "agents" of the Clinton campaign had been "spreading the word in Democratic circles that she has scandalous information about her principal opponent."

Today he spotlights an accusation on "Face the Nation" last Sunday that Obama is illegally spreading money from a Nixon-like fund to bolster political support and shoots it down by claiming the PAC fund "contributed to Clinton's 2006 Senate reelection and, in the current cycle, to Jeanne Shaheen's Senate campaign in New Hampshire, even though her husband, Bill Shaheen, heads that state's Clinton campaign."

The days are growing shorter in Iowa and New Hampshire, and more than one kind of darkness is setting in.

The Prince of Dimness

That noise in the background is Robert Novak, the self-styled Prince of Darkness, doing what he always does--nipping at politicians while barking away to call attention to himself.

Instead of slinking off after his Valerie Plame dump on the national carpet, the old dog is still up to his ancient tricks, this time befouling Presidential candidates of both parties.

Weekend before last, he stirred up a Clinton-Obama spat by writing that "agents" of the Clinton campaign had been "spreading the word in Democratic circles that she has scandalous information about her principal opponent." After smearing both Democrats with anonymous dirt, Novak went on Fox News to stand by his "scoop," while admitting it came to him third-hand with no confirmation.

This week Novak is outing Mike Huckabee as a "false conservative" who is really "a high-tax, protectionist, big-government advocate of a strong hand in the Oval Office directing the lives of Americans."

After half a century of "reporting," Novak seems to get most of his dope over expense-account lunches these days and, judging from his past gushes over Fred Thompson, the Huckabee smear may be coming from that direction.

Come to think of it, the canine metaphor may be misplaced. Novak is more of a handy hydrant for political operatives' leaks.

Newest Middle East Adventure

When faithful Robert Novak starts blowing the whistle on a “dangerous and questionable new secret operation” by the surviving Neo-Cons, we are deep in the Twilight Zone.

With terrified Congressmen as his obvious sources, Novak reveals that “high level U.S. officials are working with their Turkish counterparts on a joint military operation to suppress Kurdish guerrillas and capture their leaders. Through covert activity, their goal is to forestall Turkey from invading Iraq.”

This brilliant plan, Novak reveals, is being shepherded by none other than Assistant Secretary of Defense Eric Edelman, a Cheney protégé, fresh from his triumph of insulting Hillary Clinton, who briefed lawmakers about using U.S. Special Forces to help the Turks.

Novak reports their reaction: “Edelman's listeners were stunned. Wasn't this risky? He responded he was sure of success, adding that the U.S. role could be concealed and always would be denied.”

Terrific. Unless sanity suddenly sets in, the Bush Boy Scout Brigade is off on another Middle East adventure that could work out at least as well as toppling Saddam Hussein.

Harry Reid, the Un-Lyndon Johnson

Before he became President and lost a war, Lyndon Johnson was the most effective Senate majority leader in history. Today’s Democrats, trying to stop another war, could use his skills.

To put it kindly, Harry Reid is no LBJ. In six months as majority leader, he has consistently misspoken and mismanaged Democratic efforts to win over enough Republicans to change policy in Iraq, culminating in this week’s disastrous all-nighter.

It takes a unique set of mismanagement skills to help propel the Democratic-controlled Congress to lower approval ratings than Bush. To be fair, Reid has had to navigate differences about how to end the war in his own party and the ambivalence of Republicans who want to stay loyal to their President but fear for their electoral skins next November. Even so, his performance has been dismal.

In April, David Broder in the Washington Post called Reid “the Democrats’ Gonzales” for his gaffes, and liberal bloggers gang-tackled the venerable columnist. Three months later, Reid, looking more like Bush’s Brownie of FEMA fame, is turning out to be the polar opposite of Lyndon Johnson.

In 1966, Robert Novak of Valerie Plame fame was co-author of a book that described Johnson’s ways as a majority leader who worked with a Republican President, Eisenhower, to pass the first civil rights bill of the century. LBJ, knowing where every Senator stood on every issue and what it would take to win him over, would then go into action:

“The Treatment could last ten minutes or four hours...Its tone could be supplication, accusation, cajolery, exuberance, scorn, tears, complaint and the hint of threat...Interjections from the target were rare. Johnson anticipated them before they could be spoken. He moved in close, his face a scant millimeter from his target, his eyes widening and narrowing, his eyebrows rising and falling. From his pockets poured clippings, memos, statistics. Mimicry, humor, and the genius of analogy made The Treatment an almost hypnotic experience and rendered the target stunned and helpless.”

No one expects Reid to be another LBJ, but some semblance of parliamentary and negotiating skills would go a long way toward building some real legislative pressure to end this miserable war. Then, if Democrats win next year, they will need effective leadership to start undoing the damage Bush has done. They can do better than Harry Reid.

Bulletin From the Bush Bunker

One of the few lines of communication into the besieged White House is Plame-thrower Robert Novak, who set off l’affaire Libby by naming Joe Wilson’s wife in print.

From the entrails of Novak’s recent columns, things do not go well for the Decider. Today he reports on the pre-holiday “scouting trip” of the President’s Security Adviser Stephen Hadley to check the mood of senior Senate Republicans.

“The tone set by Hadley,” Novak writes, “signaled that the White House did not understand that Lugar, in his fateful speech on the Senate floor the night of June 25, was sending a distress signal to Bush...that it is imperative he act now. Hadley was told that it is not too late to go back to the Iraq Study Group's 79 recommendations, neglected since their release in December.”

Novak’s account suggests that Bush’s deafness continues: “Based on what Hadley said, one senator concluded that ‘they just do not recognize the depth of the difficulty they are in.’”

In his convoluted style, Novak goes around the barn with Democratic Sen. Carl Levin reporting on generals who turned down the war “czar” job because "hawks within the administration, including Vice President Cheney, remain more powerful than the pragmatists looking for an exit strategy in Iraq."

This month, with an appropriations bill and a House anti-war resolution coming up, Congressional Republicans are going to have to join Democrats in speaking louder and more clearly to be heard. All indicators, including their message through Novak today, are that they will.