Negative Campaigning Clinton's Fault

Obama tries to stick to the high ground, but Clinton is determined to drag him down into the mud. Think that's just the biased old Madville Times spinning for his second choice (after Kucinich)? Actually, it's The New York Times:

It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election.

If nothing else, self interest should push her in that direction. Mrs. Clinton did not get the big win in Pennsylvania that she needed to challenge the calculus of the Democratic race. It is true that Senator Barack Obama outspent her 2-to-1. But Mrs. Clinton and her advisers should mainly blame themselves, because, as the political operatives say, they went heavily negative and ended up squandering a good part of what was once a 20-point lead.

On the eve of this crucial primary, Mrs. Clinton became the first Democratic candidate to wave the bloody shirt of 9/11. A Clinton television ad — torn right from Karl Rove’s playbook — evoked the 1929 stock market crash, Pearl Harbor, the Cuban missile crisis, the cold war and the 9/11 attacks, complete with video of Osama bin Laden. “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen,” the narrator intoned [editorial, "The Low Road to Victory," New York Times, 2008.04.23].

Contrary to the perception that Obama owns the media, The New York Times endorsed Clinton in January. But even the Grey Lady can see that its fellow grey lady is playing negative politics as usual. And they see that it has to stop:

Mrs. Clinton once had a big lead among the party elders, but has been steadily losing it, in large part because of her negative campaign. If she is ever to have a hope of persuading these most loyal of Democrats to come back to her side, let alone win over the larger body of voters, she has to call off the dogs [NYTimes].

Oh, that darn liberal media, calling for decency and civil discourse....