Seven days before the primary is prime hyberbole time, but when Barack Obama’s chief strategist David Alexrod seemed to suggest that the assassination of Benazir Bhutto can be traced back to Hillary Clinton’s vote for the Iraq war, some folks on the left declared it a move that their most monstrous bogeymen Karl Rove, Lee Atwater and Roy Cohn wouldn’t do.

Axelrod is lucky that the New York Times believed his comment warranted a six-inch story on page A21.

There’s a huge window here for Team Clinton, as this kind of what-the-hell-are-you-thinking argument completely cuts against Obama’s nice guy image. They can argue, with some justification, that hardship doesn’t develop character, it reveals it, and then when Obama’s in the highest-pressure situation, he isn’t purer, higher-minded, or anything special; he’s just another cutthroat politician.