The more signifigant point (which Obama made...) is that if she's running a campaign based on her "experience" and implying that she somehow gained that "experience" at Bill Clinton's side (and she is....) then how come we don't get to find out exactly what she did in the Clinton Administration that gave her so much "experience".  

(Other than setting Health Care back 15 years and stonewalling Ken Star long enough for him to stumble over the blowjob and subject us all to the Impeachment nonsense...)

Which is not to say that transparency and openess in government aren't also good issues.  Have you been paying attention to the way Bush and Cheney have been governing for the last seven years?

I agree--as I wrote in the prior item, and on other occasions--that she should really be asked to speak more about her White House years. But I don't think opening up her papers, which is sure to cause mayhem, is the only way she can do that.

As for transparency, I think it's totally appropriate for people to know what's happening now, for decision making to happen in a way they can witness. But that doesn't necessarily translate into releasing internal documents from a decade-plus ago.

I'm open to being convinced on this, just haven't seen the compelling argument yet. Thanks for the comment.

--MC

It seems as if the main political function of these debates is to give somebody an oppurtuniy to make his or her points at the expense of whoever needs to be knocked down a peg or two at any given time.  Hillary has been very good at this, and has gotten lots of MSM credit and admiration for seizing her oppurtunities to make Obama look "weak", or "naive", or "irresponsible" on questions that were not, in and of themselves, winning stand alone issues.  (She will never talk to world leaders who disagree with her?  She wouldn't take care of the dead and wounded before she started shooting missles at somebody who attacked us?)

Seems like Obama was just playing the game the way you all want him to play it.  He was exploiting an oppurtunity to highlight a weakness and make a larger point about her character and undermine one of her big selling points.  And I thought he was pretty effective..... in that crass, soundbite political way that he seems to need to be effective.

Having said that, Edwards was more effective more often.

She looks like one of those nodding dogs you have in your car. Body language training Hillary.

Processes and circumstances - For christs sake people can see right through that and it does her no favours. Does Rudy talk about processes and circumstances? This is just a minor example of the fun the right are going to have with Clinton. And she doesn't have the charisma, honesty, passion, personality (call it what you like) to wiggle out of tight corners.

Obama's entitled to go for that opening Mike. Of course he is.

He was doing great until he ended it with his slogan on his unity record. What record?

And he should have started it with a "quite frankly Ms Clinton that's just not good enough, you sound like Dick Cheney" spill some blood give you and your comrades Mike a headline about Obama's inner manhood, he's off the ropes, who knew he had it in him, he's high risk play, etc, etc.

No, the average Joe isn't going to be scouring the Clinton papers for smoking guns - he depends on the press to do that.  You guys.  The fact that she [and Bill] want some of them hidden is reason enough for you guys to want to look at them.  Isn't that what you guys are for?  The fact that she stands there saying that it's not her decision, that there's a process, blah blah, never once responding to the charge that Bill wrote a letter trying to block that process, that proves Obama's point better than anything could.  And you think that keeping secrets from citizens/voters is not a problem, and that it's silly to bring up,  because you've decided that what happened in the past is not relevant?  Are you nuts?