And It's Only December

On a day when her campaign advisers had hoped the final debate before the Iowa caucuses would help Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton reestablish herself as the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, Clinton offered a formal apology to Sen. Barack Obama and accepted the resignation of a prominent campaign organizer who had raised questions about her rival's use of drugs.

Bill Shaheen, Clinton's New Hampshire co-chair and the husband of former governor Jeanne Shaheen, said in a statement announcing his resignation that his remarks to The Washington Post on Wednesday were "in no way authorized" by the senator from New York or her campaign.

“I made a mistake,” Shaheen said, adding that it was a “personal decision” to step aside as co-chairman of Clinton's New Hampshire operation.

Obama advisers were reluctant to let the issue drop, asserting that Shaheen, a close friend of the Clintons, had deliberately put the drug issue into play in the primary in an effort to stem Obama's rise in early-voting states. …

Even after seeking to play down Shaheen's comments, Mark Penn, Clinton's chief strategist, used the word “cocaine” in a television appearance late Thursday. Obama officials seized on it as evidence that the Clinton team was intentionally trying to associate Obama with drug use. …

Asked if the issue of Obama's drug use should be an issue, Clinton said, “Not in my campaign.”

“There are a lot of differences between us, and those are the contrasts that should be drawn,” said Clinton. “I'm running a campaign about who I am, what I've done and that's what I'm going to stay focused on.”

She also rejected recent comments from her campaign about Obama saying he hadn't sought the presidency for long—after writing and talking about such an ambition throughout his life.

“That was silly, and I told my campaign it was silly,” Clinton said. “My whole point has been there are legitimate differences.”

While Clinton has built a lead in national polling on the Democratic candidates, she is in a tight race with Obama and former Sen. John Edwards in Iowa.

“I always thought this would get close,” said Clinton, who noted she doesn't have the advantage of coming from a neighboring state like Obama or a long history in the state like Edwards.

Um, didn't you grow up in Illinois, the same neighboring state as Obama? I could be wrong. All I know is what I read on your website.

And there's what I've learned over the past 7 years of the Bush administration, which is why this ploy looks so familiar. It's the Scooter Gambit. The Scooter Gambit is where you have a person associated with your campaign or administration do something distasteful —that you want done, but can't do—and then cut them loose when you're called on the carpet for it, pretending that you are shocked—SHOCKED—to find such things going on.

As I recall, you pulled a Scooter earlier in the year, after a poor performance in the Democratic debates, after which you appeared to say the other candidates picked on you because you were the only woman in the debate. You later claimed never to have said that. Of course, not. She had your husband Scooter it. When pressed later on your comments, you were free to say the other candidates only attacked you because you were the leader in the race—to everyone but the people on her fund-raising e-mail lists. Well played, madame. Well played. (And you didn't even have to cut Bill loose.)

It was almost as masterful as your Bush-esque planting of questions at town hall meetings.

And, of course, that “I didn't have the advantage of coming from a neighboring state” is an old Clinton trick—an old Bill Clinton trick, that is. He said, “It depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is.” You're going with it depends on what your definition of “coming from” is. Brilliant.

Is it too early to start referring to you as “Slick Hillie?”