One of Hillary Clinton’s last lines of defense against the onslaught that is Barack Obama in her continual effort to alter her message in order to gain some traction, is the notion that she has been “vetted” and he has not. In other words, she has been through the grinder, thus her armor is thick.

All the bad stuff that can be thrown at her already has been, she argues, she is more experienced she argues, she has solutions instead of rhetoric, and that gives her the advantage. She said this past week in an interview, “One thing you know about me is that I have been vetted. I’ve been through this. I understand exactly what is coming at me, and there isn’t any new information. I mean, it’s just more of the same. It’s been recycled over and over again. I don’t think we can say that about my opponent.”

Really?

I think that may be wishful thinking.

Once you engage in ‘questionalble’ financial and legal activities in your quest to become a power broker in the is country, you must live with your decision - forever.

Even if one assumes that all dirty laundry has been aired, she keeps raising new questions about herself.

Take the matter of her tax returns. Obama has released his, and Clinton won’t release hers, she says, until after she is the Democratic nominee.

Why?

She gives no reason. She says she files an ethics statement with the Senate, which is true, but so does Obama, and yet he also has released his tax returns. Clinton refuses to do so until after the Democratic convention.

It makes no sense.

Why not do it now, while Democrats are still voting on her?

Keeping the returns secret just raises doubts and suspicions and neutralizes the whole “I am vetted” thing.

In presidential politics, you are never washed clean - never.

Your past is dug up, reshaped and used against you, and nobody has a more target rich past for Republicans than Hillary.

Just in case the name no longer rings a bell, Willie Horton was a convicted murderer who was granted 10 weekend furloughs from prison in Massachusetts under the administration of Gov. Michael Dukakis.

The 10th time, Horton fled to Maryland, broke into a home, repeatedly slashed a man with a knife and beat and raped the man’s fiancée. Horton was caught and sentenced to two consecutive life terms plus 85 years.

By the time Dukakis ran for president, he had already been “vetted” and “scrubbed” on the matter of Willie Horton and was sure it could not be used against him. The Lawrence, Mass., Eagle-Tribune had done more than 200 stories about it in 1987. And when Al Gore raised the issue in a New York primary debate against Dukakis, the Democratic crowd booed Gore and applauded Dukakis.

The issue never came up again in the primaries. But it sure came up in the general election, and we know what happened to Dukakis.

Similarly, John Kerry’s Vietnam War service on a Swift boat had been raised against him for decades, and nobody gave it any credence. But it resurfaced in a new and ugly way when he ran for president in 2004.

The point is this, no candidate get a pass on the past - they only think they do.

If John McCain gets the nomination, we are going to hear that he was turned into a “Manchurian candidate” when he was a prisoner of war. If Obama wins the nomination, we are going to hear a lot more about Tony Rezko and the Exelon Corp. And if Clinton is the nominee, get ready for a recap of Whitewater, her cattle future trading, her ties to law firms suspected of money laundering, Monica-gate, etc.

If “I am vetted” is the best she can do, then she is going down in flames for sure. It’s not about a legitimate election, it’s about who holds the power and the dirt in the shady political background.

Posted by Matthew J. Podoba on Thursday, February 14th, 2008 at 11:14 am.