Behind The 'Madrassa Hoax'

Political operatives on all sides are worried about the new rules governing their world. “We used to whine about round-the-clock cable in ’96—that’s child’s play now,” says Harold Ickes, a longtime Clinton aide getting ready to help Hillary. “The lesson of Swift Boat [the 2004 efforts to throw mud on John Kerry over his Vietnam service on a river craft] is you cannot let this stuff circulate unanswered.” The implications for opposition research are only now coming into view. “If they [bloggers] can finger you trying to drop poison into the well, you’ll be hurt by it,” Ickes adds. “Stuff moves out so quickly that campaigns have to exercise much more control over their negative information apparatus.” This could be good. When “oppo” goes transparent, it might shrivel.

Until then, the hostilities will escalate. Last week, Joe Novak, a Chicago media consultant with a longtime rivalry with David Axelrod, Obama’s campaign chief, launched a Web site dedicated to trashing Obama. (One of his first hits was on Michelle Obama for sitting on the board of a pickle company that closed a plant recently.) Meanwhile, Dick Morris, the former Clinton operative turned Hillary hater, is working on a dirt-filled documentary. Unless the Clintons’ courtship of Rupert Murdoch bears fruit quickly, it’ll no doubt be Doocy’ed for Fox viewers as soon as it’s released.

© 2007