If you'll permit me to quote from a previous comment, I still have the same question. If what the Clinton campaign has been doing isn't Rove/Atwateresque, what in fact is it?

"What do you think, at this point, differentiates Senator Clinton's campaign from the Rove playbook? Repeating distortions over and over again until people think they're true? Check. Trying to swiftboat Obama at his point of greatest strength (opposition to the Iraq war)? Check. Sending out brazenly false mailers on abortion and taxes? Check. Painting the candidate as a flip-flopper based on out-of-context Senate votes? Check. Indulging in union-busting rhetoric when useful? Check. Wallowing in the politics of fear? Check. Encouraging wedge divisiveness by rather blatantly playing the race card? Check. Voter suppression? Check. Chain e-mail smears and robocalls? Check.

In other words, is there a line Clinton could cross in this primary campaign, in your eyes, and then be deemed worthy of reproach?" Put another way in the context of this column, is there a line the Clintons could cross, in your eyes, where a comparison to Rove and Atwater would become justified? (Mind you, this is a comparison many other left-leaning, Democratic pundits have had no problem making -- See Alter, Dionne, Waldman, Continetti, Chait, Carlson, King, Robinson, Herbert, etc.)

As regarding the race card stuff, you only mention the LBJ and fairy tale screeds, both of which I found readily misconstruable but not racist per se. You neglect to mention (except in passing) Billy Shaheen, Robert Johnson, "imaginary hip black friend," "shuck-and-jive," etc.

See TPM's Josh Marshall, by no means an "Obamabot": ""We seem to be at the point where there are now two credible possibilities. One is that the Clinton campaign is intentionally pursuing a strategy of using surrogates to hit Obama with racially-charged language or with charges that while not directly tied to race nonetheless play to stereotypes about black men. The other possibility is that the Clinton campaign is extraordinarily unlucky and continually finds its surrogates stumbling on to racially-charged or denigrating language when discussing Obama."

See Margaret Carlson: "While it isn't clear from whose sleeve the card was pulled, it is likely it wasn't from the person with the most to lose. If Hillary Clinton's campaign had taken only one shot at Obama, it might have been blown off as a mistake. But four shots constitutes a pattern."

See the NYT, so pro-Obama that they just strongly endorsed Hillary: "By the time the campaigns got to New Hampshire, the Clinton team was panicking...It was clearly her side that first stoked the race and gender issue."

Acting like the race card got unfortunately and mistakenly played by the media here is a bit disingenuous. The media exacerbated the problem, no question. But the Clintons are not innocent.