[Obama said:] "I do think there's maybe a generational element to this, partly. In the sense that I didn't come of age in the battles of the sixties, I'm not as invested in them. So I think I talk differently about issues ... and values. And that's why I think we've been resonating with the American people ... What I'm saying is that I think the average Baby Boomer has moved beyond a lot of the arguments of the sixties, but our politicians haven't. It's all around culture wars ... or Vietnam."

Anyone who wants to understand why some Democrats have questions about Obama's politics should look closely at that quote. Let me state first: I'm only two and a half years older than Obama. I don't want to keep fighting the "battles of the sixties," either. But the fact is, to the extent that it seems sometimes like we have to -- over civil rights, women's rights, gay rights -- it's almost always because Republicans are fighting to block the gains of those groups, or to roll back already-won gains. If Obama wants Democrats to know he's not "as invested" in those battles as Hillary Clinton, that's worth knowing. I actually think Obama's gotten off easy, not having to explain what he meant by that. (my emphasis)

Three weeks ago, I wrote that Clinton was working to make voters uneasy, utilizing just enough fear to encourage them to stick with the known quantity in the race. But in the time since, her campaign has begun to appear more and more as though it's being run by Karl Rove or Lee Atwater. Pick your tired metaphor -- take-no-prisoners, brass knuckles, no-holds-barred, playing for keeps -- however you describe it, the Clinton campaign is not only not going easy on Obama, they're doing so in awfully familiar ways. So many of the ingredients of a typical GOP campaign are there, in addition to fear. We have the efforts to make it harder for the opponent’s voters to get to the polls (the Nevada lawsuit seeking to shut down at-large caucus sites in Las Vegas, to which the Clinton campaign gave its tacit support). We have, depending on how you interpret the events of the last couple of weeks, the exploitation of racial divisions and suspicions (including multiple Clinton surrogates criticizing Obama for his admitted teenage drug use). And most of all, we have an utterly shameless dishonesty.