Ugly Politics

There are early signs that this is going to be an ugly primary season. I'm not sure who fabricated the story, or the leak, but this is exactly the kind of politics that Barack Obama is trying to redefine. From the New York Times:

A disputed report on the Web site of a conservative magazine about Senator Barack Obama’s childhood schooling kicked off a pointed exchange this week The original report, posted on the online version of Insight, a magazine owned by The Washington Times, said that as a child in Indonesia, Mr. Obama had attended a madrassa, a school that teaches a radical version of the Muslim faith. Mr. Obama, who spent a few years in Jakarta as a boy, is a Christian.

Adding to the political volatility of the report was the attribution of the news to “researchers connected to” Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Representatives of Mr. Obama of Illinois and Mrs. Clinton of New York denounced the Insight report, calling it false and an effort by a conservative publication to smear two Democratic contenders at the same time.