Whitewater All Over Again

What Digby said.

We are also seeing some similar reporting begin to emerge on Obama, much of it
generated by hometown political rivals, just as we saw in the Clinton years. Today
the LA Times implies that Obama is exaggerating his activist past. A couple of
weeks ago we saw a truly egregiously misleading report on a deal he made to buy some land from a supporter.

These are patented Whitewater-style "smell test" stories. They are based on complicated details that make the casual reader's eyes glaze over and about which the subject has to issue long confusing explanations in return. They feature colorful and unsavory political characters in some way. They often happened in the past and they tend to be written in such a way as to say that even if they aren't illegal they "look bad." The underlying theme is hypocrisy because the subjects are portrayed as making a dishonest buck while pretending to represent the average working man. Oh, and they always feature a Democrat. Republicans are not subject to such scrutiny because a craven, opportunistic Republican isn't "news." (Neat trick huh?)

No single story will bring down a candidate because they have no substance to them. It's the combined effect they are looking for to build a sense overall sleaziness. "Where there's smoke there's fire" right?

Get your slime detectors out, because the Democrats are back in power and the Republicans and the media are going to party like it's the 1990s all over again.