Clinton, Obama camps go at it

Let's get ready to rumble!

Actually, the war of words between the Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama campaigns is already ratcheting up today.

Hitting back at Clinton after her attacks helped her revive her presidential hopes with wins in Ohio and Texas on Tuesday, Obama's camp on Wednesday questioned why she hadn't released her income tax returns, asking what she was hiding.

The Clinton camp responded by referring to Tony Rezko, the former Obama fund-raiser on trial on unrelated federal corruption charges.

This morning, it peddled a video of Susan Rice, an Obama foreign policy adviser defending him against a Clinton TV ad in Texas questioning his commander-in-chief readiness with the proverbial red phone ringing in the White House at 3 a.m.
"They're both not ready to have that 3 a.m. phone call," Rice said on MSNBC.

Later today, the Clinton camp sent out a memo to reporters attacking Obama for criticizing Clinton.

"Sen. Obama’s decision to go explicitly negative suggests that he is unable to make an affirmative case for his candidacy beyond ad hominem attacks," the memo said. "....Apparently, the Obama campaign's idea of new politics is to recycle the same old Republican attacks on Senator Clinton that have failed for years. Imitating Ken Starr is not the way to win the Democratic nomination.

That drew this response from Obama spokesman Bill Burton:

“It is absurd that after weeks of badgering the media to 'vet' Senator 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 Senator 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."

And it's still nearly seven weeks until the next big showdown, the Pennsylvania primary on April 22.