Clinton aide compares Obama to Ken Starr

Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson, taking the campaign a bit meta on a conference call today, attacked Obama for attacking Clinton, and compared him to a notorious Clinton foe.

"When Sen. Obama was confronted with questions over whether he was ready to be commander in chief and steward of the economy, he chose not to address those questions, but to attack Sen. Clinton," Wolfson said. "I for one do not believe that imitating Ken Starr is the way to win a Democratic primary election for president."

Wolfson was attacking Obama's explicit strategy, in the wake of his March 4 losses, to attack elements of Clinton's record on the grounds of secrecy, and to revisit the questions raised by Clinton foes in the 1990s and earlier. Obama has demanded Clinton's tax returns, cited delays in releasing her White House schedules, and even made reference to trades in cattle futures in the late 1970s that became a subject of allegations during the White House years.

Wolfson also responded to the substance of Obama's complaint, that Clinton hasn't released her recent tax returns, and to the reminder today that Clinton (via Wolfson) attacked her 2000 Senate rival, Rick Lazio, for failing to release his tax returns.

"Over 20 years of the Clintons' tax returns are part of the public record," he said, referring to their White House years and also to her more recent Senate disclosure forms. "Everyone knows we have made clear that all of the post-White House tax returns will be put out by the campaign on or about tax time — April 15," he said, though he didn't explain why they wouldn't be out sooner.

"As somebody who led the effort to ensure that Mr. Lazio provided his tax returns, certainly at that point he had not provided 20 years of his tax returns to the people of New York," he said.

He also promised the tax returns would be out before the April 22 Pennsylvania primary.

UPDATE: Obama spokesman Bill Burton responds:

It is absurd that after weeks of badgering the media to "vet" Sen. Obama, the Clinton campaign believes that they should be held to an entirely different standard. We don’t believe that expecting candidates for the presidency to disclose their tax returns somehow constitutes Ken Starr tactics, but the kind of transparency and accountability that Americans are looking for and that’s been missing in Washington for far too long. And if Sen. Clinton doesn’t think that the Republicans will ask these very same questions, then she’s not as ready to go toe to toe with John McCain as she claims.

