Never for a moment have I doubted that politics was as rough-and-tumble as anything I see on the sporting fields. Still, for all the name-calling and smear tactics of presidential campaigns present and past, never have I witnessed such a low blow as the one inflicted on Hillary Clinton last night. And this one apparently didn’t come from the Obama camp, but from anonymous Democrats, who compared the New York senator to Tonya Harding. According to ABC’s Jake Tapper, they believe she is pursuing “the Tonya Harding option”–kneecapping your rival so that he can’t win. Maureen Dowd took the notion a step further in today’s New York Times, suggesting that Clinton knows she can’t win the nomination and her only hope for the presidency she so desperately covets is to make Obama unelectable against McCain–so that she can reemerge as the party’s savior in four years.

Calling Sen. Clinton “a monster” is one thing, but giving a name and face–especially that name and that face–to the monster is far worse. I don’t know Sen. Clinton, but I sure do know Tonya, whose career I covered extensively. And she was a true guttersnipe, a compulsive liar and cheat.

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