I think people can look at how the G.O.P. continues to target Obama in many states and draw their own conclusions about who'd the Republicans rather face in a general election.

But Democrats shouldn't kid themselves into thinking this type of gutter politics is limited only to the Republicans. Just last week, Nevada voters were subjected to similar -- albeit more subtle -- robocalls blasting Barack Hussein Obama (while gratuitously mentioning the middle name no fewer than four times in the 30-second call). And frankly, I expect Democrats to behave more responsibly than Fox News in such a critical primary.

Charlie --

Do we know that it was Democrats who sent those robocalls to Nevada voters? If you're right that the GOP is already targeting Obama, maybe it was Republicans who did the robocalls.

Just thinking out loud here.

Ah...the Clark County Republicans...never too ashamed to post inflammatory smears on their website.

Word, Holly. And on the misogyny front, the Rs are going to have plenty of allies in the MSM, and not just on the small carnivore network, as coverage of N.H. showed.

Ooh, the pseudo-retraction of the Obama piece comes right under an anti-hate quote from MLK, about how hate causes one to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.

This is a particularly choice bit of shamelessness, and yet also a self-accusation. The "retraction" actually continues the lie, citing only vague "errors" of fact in the general text, which makes several claims.

What it does not do, and should, is explicitly repudiate the central claim of the smear, that Obama is Muslim. That is false, and a gross lie.

So they planted the Big Lie, kept it visible, then took it down with out actually saying that it was false, but left its odor to linger.

Nor did they identify it as a piece of a hate campaign that people, including decent Republicans should reject and be wary of.

Oddly, the Clark Co. GOP site contains a link to Snopes.com, the urban legend site, where a search on "Obama" calls up a detailed refutation of the smears, last updated Jan 15, two days before the date on the screen shot at think from the piece above.

(On a smaller note, they need an editor; the smear refers to Obama as a "Democrate", some sort of floor model I guess, and his mother as an "athiest", presumably in contrast to a middling athier or a mere lowly athy.)

Kari--

It's an interesting question. They're robo calls, so we don't know 100-percent who's behind them. We do know who benefitted.

We also know last year Hillary Clinton called negative campaigning "the fun part of the campaign." We know Hillary's former national co-chair (and New Hampshire native) clumsily wondered aloud if Obama dealt drugs. We know that high-profile endorsers of Hillary have demonstrated a skill in keeping the discredited "madrassa" smear part of the conversation. We know Hillary's top campaign advisor just days after the drug smear went out his way to repeat the drug story on Hardball to the disgust of everyone on the program including Trippi. We know Hillary's campaign went after Obama's kindergarten record. We know Hillary allies at AFSCME attacked Obama in a way to make the charge appear as if it came from Edwards. We know Obama's 100-percent Planned Parenthood rating in Illinois on choice didn't stop the Clinton campaign from distorted Obama's record to the point where the Clinton surrogate making the attack now says she thoroughly regrets it.

<h2>So we don't know who made the dogwhistling robo calls, but it's not that hard to guess.</h2>