LET THE GAMES BEGIN

The Democrats started the campaign season early, so the bloodletting has started early. After some polite maneuvering, the two biggest media stars are getting after each other.

The two attention getters in question are Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Obama has been the media darling for weeks. Now, however, he seems to be attacking.

The game began with David Geffen, Hollywood mogul and former Friend of Bill. In the last race, Hollywood regularly fawned over, donated to and supported the Clintons, notably Bill. Hillary must have expected the same treatment. However, Geffen backs Obama and came out against Hillary. After raising around a million for Obama, Geffen said, in the New York Times no less, that Bill was a reckless guy and gave his enemies a lot of ammunition to hurt him. That shouldn’t make Hillary mad, she knows it’s true. She was there for the Monica debacle.

Geffen also took after Hillary, calling her incredibly polarizing and ambitious. Again, it’s hard to argue with those characterizations.

Despite the truth of the contentions, Hillary is firing back, demanding that Obama repudiate the statements. Obama knows that would look stupid, since the statements are true, so he declined.

I have to compliment Obama. His reply is deft. He said "It's not clear to me why I'd be apologizing for someone else's remark, I have said repeatedly I have the utmost respect for Sen. Clinton and have considered her an ally in the Senate and will continue to consider it that way throughout this campaign." A compliment for Hillary, no denial of the truth or repudiation of Geffen, and he, personally, stayed above the fray. Nice job.

Obama’s campaign fired back, though, using the race card and criticizing Senator Robert Ford, who has endorsed Clinton, and said Obama would not win because he is black. Then, Obama’s campaign pointed out that the Clintons were fine with Geffen when he raised $18 million for them.

Good point. Score this one for Obama.