They must all be high-fiving at Clinton HQ this afternoon. Hillary brought up Rev. Wright to change the subject from her serial lies about the trip to Bosnia -- and CNN is dutifully replaying it. Although, at 5:54 PM tonight, a stunning thing happened -- even Wolf Blitzer seems to get that "she tried to change the subject as she comes under scrutiny for some controversial remarks of her own." Yeah, even Wolf gets it.
I expected the campaign to go pretty low, but didn't really expect to see Hillary herself get into the muck like this. How demeaning for her. Last week, Hillary wouldn't answer a question about Wright -- she literally ignored the reporter. Earlier today, at the Pittsburgh Tribune Review (owned by right winger Richard Mellon Sciafe), she jumped right in. It came up again at a press conference this afternoon, which I watched live on CNN. Greg Sargent posted video of the presser at TPM Elections and he accurately reported this key point:
Also, note that Hillary appears to be reading much of her material on the Wright questions, suggesting that real care went into working out precisely how she'd deal with the issue.
Clearly, the Clinton campaign thought this messaging very carefully. How much did it cost Mark Penn to come up with the line "He would not have been my pastor"? They've probably been focus group testing that line for a week. But what they don't get is that it just looks extremely desperate and pathetic for Hillary to evoke Rev. Wright now.
The Bosnia trip scandal isn't going away. Clinton made that trip a centerpiece of her campaign. There's too much video and too many lies told by the candidate herself.
The Bosnia controversy has redefined Clinton's campaign -- and created a new story line about Clinton's ability to separate reality from fiction. For example, check this passage from Newsweek:
Is it possible that Hillary Clinton really thought she risked her life disembarking from a plane and running for cover "under sniper fire" at the heavily fortified U.S. Air Force base at Tuzla? Clinton has been telling the story of her visit to Bosnia in 1996 for many years, gradually adding embellishment and changing details. Perhaps she may have actually come to believe it.
Ouch.
Clinton brought that on herself. Clinton is the star of all the Bosnia-related videos, not someone's pastor. Her words are at issue, not someone's pastor. Her lies are being dissected, not someone's pastor.
And, like I said, there's plenty of video -- and audio from today:
