We’ve seen this logic before in various forms — most recently at MyDD, most famously perhaps with Billy “Didn’t Obama use drugs?” Shaheen — but it always seems to come from someone on her side, doesn’t it? Not once to my knowledge have the Obamites floated the theory that Monicagate and Whitewater and impeachment and the various other peccadilloes that have so endeared the Clintons to us over the years should be revisited in the primary, before the Snidely Whiplashes at the RNC can use them to bludgeon Her Majesty into oblivion.

How tragic that our evil has compelled these fine, high-minded progressives to behave so ruthlessly.

“Look what the Republicans did to a genuine war hero,” Ickes said, in a reference to John Kerry.

“Super delegates have to take into account the strengths and weakness of both candidates and decide who would make the strongest candidate against what will undoubtedly be ferocious Republican attacks,” Ickes continued. “I’ve had super delegates tell me that the Wright issue is a real issue for them.”

In a reference to Wright’s controversial views, Ickes continued: “Nobody thinks that Barack Obama harbors those thoughts. But that’s not the issue. The issue is what Republicans [will do with them]…I think they’re going to give him a very tough time.”

Asked whether he was specifically bringing up Wright to super-delegates, Ickes said: “I’ve said what I’ve said…I tell people that they need to look at what they think Republicans may use against him. Wright comes up in the conversations.”

It tells you a lot about where the left stands on the merits of Wright’s crap that Ickes feels obliged to pawn this off on the right as some dirty trick, as though any objection to Obama nodding along for decades to lectures about “white folks’ greed” must surely be below the belt, beyond the bounds of polite political discourse. We’ve seen that logic at work recently too, but at least it’s a political apparatchik this time and not the “impartial” media that’s trying to define what constitutes Queensbury rules.

Follow the link to TPM and read down to the bottom for the exciting conclusion to this morning’s post about Hillary exercising the nuclear option at the convention. Will she do it? Yes, my friends, but reluctantly. Only to stop the GOP, you understand.

Update: Some new, fun, archived video from Newsbusters. The left’s sure going to be sore to discover that attacking McCain for his ties to Hagee now qualifies as a low blow, unfit for public discourse.