Clinton, Obama and Geffen (Lanny Davis)

Last week’s brief tiff between the Clinton and Obama campaigns and the personal attack on Bill and Hillary Clinton by Hollywood figure David Geffen might have made some of the pundits and the compulsive Clinton haters gleeful. But, in fact, by the week’s end, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on balance came out ahead and showed class — in great contrast to Mr. Geffen, who showed the opposite. Clinton had a right to respond to being called a liar and having her integrity challenged by Mr. Geffen, and she did. Her description of Mr. Geffen’s remarks as symbolizing the politics of personal destruction that most Americans have come to detest was exactly right.

The commentaries by the usual Hillary critics — including one commentator on this blog site saying that this was Clinton resenting “criticism” — were downright silly. We all know the difference between criticism of positions taken on the issues, to which Clinton has never taken personal offense, and a personal attack on motives or integrity. Mr. Geffen has a right to his anger, of course, though he seems to have a need to express it publicly in almost a particularly vicious and unseemly fashion. But it is clear that he is not basing these emotions on facts. For example, he ignores the evidence on electability and indisputable recent data on Democratic voters’ views of Clinton’s character traits. For example, most recent polls show Clinton running more strongly against any of the Republican presidential candidates than any other Democratic candidate. And The Washington Post/ABC News poll in the last two days showed that Clinton runs ahead of Obama, who is in second place, and the other candidates on most of the important character traits that voters, not just Democrats, believe are crucial in the president in these post-9/11 times: Best experience to be president (71 percent to 5 percent over Obama), strongest leader (52 percent to 23 percent over Obama), and best chance of getting elected in 2008 (48 percent to 17 percent over Obama). Looks like Mr. Geffen stands with 17 percent of Democrats in his opinion on electability — but has somehow convinced himself that 17 percent is a majority. Go figure. According to this most recent Washington Post/ABC data, significantly more Democrats also think Clinton better understands problems of people like them and is closer to them on the issues than any other presidential candidate.

In the final analysis, Obama came out of this Geffen incident with his statesmanship and honor intact. Yes, there was a perhaps “irresistible impulse” by his campaign to immediately attack back after the Clinton campaign called on Obama to disassociate himself from Mr. Geffen’s personal attack. The Obama campaign immediately responded by lashing out at Clinton’s campaign for not repudiating a nasty cheap shot a few days before against Obama by a leading African American elected official from South Carolina who is supporting Clinton. In fact, Clinton’s campaign had promptly disassociated itself from that remark. And that official had reportedly promptly apologized, a fact apparently not known by the Obama campaign when it attacked the Clinton campaign back immediately.

But Obama waited only a day to step up to the line — with the class and political savvy that has already impressed so many people — and disassociated himself from the attack on the Clinton campaign by his own campaign staff and expressed his respect for Clinton. So unlike the conventional wisdom of most of the political pundits that this very public and brief attack and counterattack by campaign staffs hurt both candidates, I disagree. Sure, it would have been better if Mr. Geffen had sought out anger management counsel rather than let loose his personal vitriol on the record to Maureen Dowd of The New York Times; and it was unfortunate that at least for one day’s news cycle the fact of a tit-for-tat between Clinton’s and Obama’s campaign staffs dominated the more important issues the American people truly care about.

But at the end of the story, Clinton showed she could defend herself and fight back — no danger of her being swift-boated without a sharp counterattack — and Obama reinforced his authenticity as a man trying to rise above the sniping culture of “gotcha” politics that has so disgusted Americans in both parties these last 15 to 20 years. So, partisan Republicans and anti-Clinton cheerleaders — sorry to disappoint you. The Democratic presidential candidates, all of them, can look forward, debate the issues, disagreeing respectably and then, after the convention, ready themselves to take back the White House in ’08 with a unified party.

Full disclosure (surprise!):

I am a strong Hillary Rodham Clinton supporter. I genuinely believe she will make a great president. I also believe that her likeability will shine through over time to the nation the same way it did over time in NY. I am also sure that her unique experience in the White House during Bill Clinton's two terms, including first-hand understanding of foreign policy crises, cannot be matched by any other candidate in either party.

(Mr. Davis has previously disclosed that he is supporting Sen. Clinton for president . He is also raising money for her. He believes she would make the best president of anyone running, Democrat or Republican).

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