Clinton is behind this.
You are so right.
The Clintons, ie Ickes, Hildebeeste, McAuliffe, and Carville, have a little rolodex. Inside the rolodex are cards, each with an "attack" of some sort, to be pulled and spun as they see fit.
Their guy took a terrible beating last week. The foreign leaders and the repub ad about Kerry's vote for money for Iraq were 7.3 on the campaign Richter scale.
Carville goes to the rolodex and boom. "How about we pull out Richard Clarke?" snakehead asks.
McAuliffe scratches his head in thought. "I don't know. That Nigeria/Plume thing is going nowhere. We used one of our big ones when we bought out those 9/11 families. I'm not sure we should use this right now. We should get Kerry back on the campaign trail before we put it out."
Hillary sniffed and tugged at her pointy hat. "Which is EXACTLY the reason we should get it out there now. As usual the new JFK is making an ass of himself. Harold you need to work on him some more. He can't stop trying to project himself as Mr. Tough Guy and it ain't working. But if we put out Richard Clarke now we make the pubbies take some heat for a while. Tell John to respond to reporters with a simple "I'm on vacation now. I think the facts speak for themselves. Think you can make him do that, Hal?" Ickes shrugged but didn't complain. They'd given him a sow's ear of a candidate and he was suppose to make him into a silk purse?
Bill fiddled with tie self-consciously. He too had been accused of pining for the spotlight and he felt a slight kindred for Kerry because of this.
"I think Hil is right," Bill said. He always thought Hillary was right.
"You still got a stack of cards in that rolodex, James?" McAuliffe asked. Carville pulled out a pile of cards numbering over 200, enough for almost every day of the campaign if they needed it.
"We still got the old abortion story," James said, flipping through the cards. "I think we should save that one until closer to November," Carville continued flipping through the cards. "Hey, here, I got about five Iraqis ready to talk about how they hate America in their country."
McAuliffe scowled. "We're saving that for when the pubs bring out the happy Iraqis. I don't want to waste that for Kerry's stupidity. It was him that came up with that foreign leader nonsense. We told him it was a political disaster."
Carville slammed the rolodex shut. "Okay, get Lesley Stahl on the phone and tell her we got a terrorist advisor ready to connect the administrations determination to hook up Iraq to Al-Queda. The polls are saying more and more Americans believe this. In time more truth is going to come out and we'll never be able to drive a wedge of doubt in the public's head. Remember our discussion. We've got to fight Bush on every front on this war on terror."
Hillary got up from her seat and dialed Lesley Stahl at a special private number only she had.