As part of the ongoing plot by both sides to ensure that Americans get so disgusted by politics that we will cheerfully welcome the incipient corporate oligarchy all the hippies in Seattle have been xeroxing fliers about, Hillary Clinton's team today attempted to extract as much press out of an Obama advisor's referral to their candidate as a "monster" as possible. During a media conference call, Clinton supporters demanded that Obama force the adviser, Samantha Power, out of his campaign, calling it a "test of character" for the Illinois senator. Apparently, it worked: Powers has resigned. Does that mean Obama passed the test, or does it make him a gigantic pussy? Only time will tell!

Asked to compare "Monstergate" with yesterday's Greatest Insult Ever, in which Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson suggested similarities between Obama and Democratic boogeyman Ken Starr, Wolfson claimed that there was a world of difference: "Ours was a reaction to the Obama campaign's attacks on Senator Clinton post-their losses in Ohio and Texas. I did not say that Senator Obama was like Ken Starr, and I think there is a difference between engaging in the kind of ad hominem personal attack on someone's character that Samantha Power did, and talking about the kind of campaign that team Obama has been running since Ohio and Texas."

[Wolfson's actual statement: "When Sen. Obama was confronted with questions over whether he was ready to be commander in chief and steward of the economy, he chose not to address those questions, but to attack Sen. Clinton. I for one do not believe that imitating Ken Starr is the way to win a Democratic primary election for president." So he didn't say that Obama was like Ken Starr, he said he was imitating Ken Starr. World of difference.]

All of this raises a troubling question, one that the press has not yet seemed to follow up on: Is the Clinton campaign saying that Ken Starr is not a monster? That referring to someone as a monster is beyond the pale, but comparisons to Ken Starr are almost terms of endearment? Does the Clinton campaign actually loooove Ken Starr? We demand answers; it may be the most substantive part of the primary thus far. [Politico]