Barack Obama, Ken Starr: Two Peas in a Pod?

Only a Clinton could find similarities between Barack Obama and Ken Starr -- but now the Clintons have done just that.

Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson, taking the campaign a bit meta on a conference call today, attacked Obama for attacking Clinton, and compared him to a notorious Clinton foe.

"When Senator Obama was confronted with questions over whether he was ready to be Commander-in-Chief and steward of the economy, he chose not to address those questions, but to attack Senator Clinton," Wolfson said. "I for one do not believe that imitating Ken Starr is the way to win a Democratic primary election for president."

Wolfson was attacking Obama's explicit strategy, in the wake of his March 4 losses, to attack elements of Clinton's record on the grounds of secrecy, and to revisit the questions raised by Clinton foes in the 1990s and earlier. Obama has demanded Clinton's tax returns, cited delays in releasing her White House schedules, and even made reference to trades in cattle futures in the late 1970s that became a subject of allegations during the White House years.

I guess for the Clintons "Ken Starr" is generic for "someone who asks tough questions and wants to see documentation."

This is an example of the blood-letting that the Democratic Party would have preferred to avoid.

Update:  As Michelle Malkin notes, this sort of open warfare makes a Clinton-Obama ticket (an idea floated by Hillary just yesterday) unlikely.