Tom Hayden reminds us of Hillary's radical roots

Former Michigander Tom Hayden, an author of the Port Huron Statement of the Sixties, writes in The Nation about how disingenuous Hillary is being by piling on in attempts to tie Barack Obama to Sixties' radicals.

As Obama noted, he was only eight years old when the Weathermen were active. But he did not point out, as some think he should, that Hillary Clinton was a radical back then -- something that the "right-wing attack machine" is holding in reserve if she gets the nod for the fall election.

After leaving Yale, newly minted lawyer Hillary went to work for a left-wing San Francisco firm that specialized in defending the Black Panthers and labor leaders tied to Communist causes. Those facts may make me wish Hillary were more like she once was. But they also show that people change and that you cannot be judged by the actions of every friend or family member. (Though I am not sure I can forgive Hillary for sticking with Bill, especially now.)

As Hayden writes:

. . . doesn't she see how the Hillary of today would accuse the Hillary of the sixties of associating with black revolutionaries who fought gun battles with police officers, and defending pro-communist lawyers who backed communists? Doesn't the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whom Hillary attacks today, represent the very essence of the black radicals Hillary was associating with in those days? And isn't the Hillary of today becoming the same kind of guilt-by-association insinuator as the Richard Nixon she worked to impeach?

I am glad to see Obama remaining above the fray, but I hope that Hayden's comments get a wide play. The argument that the right has thrown everything at Hillary belies the fact that they haven't even started.