Hillary's Turn

"Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton shifted to a much more assertive tone in a debate Thursday night by going directly after her opponents, issuing a stern warning that Democrats should stop 'throwing mud' and adopting tactics 'right out of the Republican playbook,' " says the New York Times.

"John Edwards and Senator Barack Obama of Illinois did not shy away from the fight, criticizing Mrs. Clinton for refusing to provide detailed plans to deal with Social Security, Iraq and Iran. Mr. Obama took on Mrs. Clinton more directly than he had before over health care, while Mr. Edwards attacked her as a defender of a Washington system 'that is rigged and is corrupt.'

"Much of the debate had a confrontational edge and freewheeling tone, with the leading candidates trying to draw sharp contrasts with pointed language. Mrs. Clinton even said she was wearing an 'asbestos' pantsuit, while Senator Christopher J. Dodd worried about 'a shrillness to the debate.' "

But the best lead of the night goes to Roger Simon: "The (rhymes with rich) is back."

You can do that sort of thing on the Internet.

Some other online reactions, starting with the Atlantic's Marc Ambinder: "Clinton did not sound any obvious false notes, nor did she strike confusing or conflicting notes, and, as a bonus, she got an entire minute and a half to make her rah-rah appeal to women. Clinton had the most at stake, and she arguably gave her most commanding performance to date."

NBC's Chuck Todd: Clinton really benefitted from the audience responses; I'd love to know who got tickets for this debate, whether one campaign was allowed to get more tix than another. Because the booing by the Clinton supporters when Edwards or Obama confronted Clinton were distracting to the candidates and did throw them off every now and then."

Andrew Sullivan: "Her more aggressive rebuttals led to a few moments of bossy screechiness, and her careful parsing of everything continued, diamonds and pearls included . . . And that whole passive-aggressive crap about 'throwing mud' and 'Republican talking points' drove me once again up the wall."

Ramesh Ponnuru: "Clinton won. And not just in the if-she-doesn't-lose-she-wins sense. She just flat-out won. Much of the press wants her to stumble to have a better race, but it didn't happen."

An interesting bit of media criticism from Obama, who got rock-star press when he first jumped into the race. The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza reports:

"I asked Obama whether he thought that journalists 'respect' Clinton for being so good at politics. 'Absolutely. I don't THINK that--' he began, at which point Robert Gibbs, his communications director, interrupted to say that the correct word was 'revere.' Obama smiled and added, 'I think a classic example was when Adam Nagourney writes on the front page of the New York Times an admiring piece about how Hillary has finessed the fact that she voted for the war and gotten people to forget about it.'

"The article, which was co-written by Patrick Healy and published early last August with the headline 'SLOWLY, CLINTON SHIFTS ON WAR, QUIETING FOES,' was hardly admiring. When I asked Nagourney about Obama's contention, he replied in an e-mail, 'This was a very straightforward and simple story: reporting the fact that Mrs. Clinton had repositioned herself on the war in a significant way, and had done so apparently unnoticed by the press and--dare I say?--her opponents.' "