Ann Lewis and Howard Wolfson, top aides to Clinton, held a conference call with reporters in which they said that Obama’s calling on the former first lady to release her tax returns were similar to attacks from the GOP that the Clintons have faced before.
“I for one do not believe that imitating Ken Starr is a way to win a Democratic primary for the presidency,” Wolfson said.
Methinks the lady doth protest too much. Especially after it was Hillary who made "Mr. Lazio, release those tax returns" a key part of her 2000 Senate campaign against Republican Rick Lazio. Back then Hillary said it was "frankly disturbing" that a candidate would waffle over when they were going to release their returns. But now that she's the one waffling, saying she may release them "around" April 15 (if we're lucky), suddenly it's the Spanish Inquisition to expect her to be true to her previous word. (Obama released his returns a year ago.)
And a quick word about the "around" April 15th quasi-promise. Does around April 15 mean before or after the final important primary in Pennsylvania on April 22? And even if it's before April 22, how much before? Is Hillary planning on dumping 7 years worth of tax documents on the media with only days to go before the Pennsylvania primary, so there's no time for the media to fully vet the documents, no time for Democratic voters to find out what's in them and have all the facts before voting? Why not just release them now? It costs a dime to go to Kinkos. What is Hillary hiding that she would invoke Monica - Monica! - in order to change the subject?
Hillary's campaign also argues that there are 20 years of her tax returns already released to the public. Well, yes - from 1980 to 2000. It's now 2008. We don't get to see the last 8 years? That's an odd standard, and in any case, she didn't demand in 2000 that Rick Lazio only release his returns pre-1992.
One more thing. This of course now means that Hillary was the one acting like Kenn Starr when she demanded that Lazio release his returns.
