Certain political "truths" become true through repetition. Among these is the commonly-heard charge that Hillary Clinton has run a negative campaign.

Heretofore, the term "negative campaigning" referred to smears, insults, verbal violence and brutal attacks on character. But now, for the first time in history, "negative" has been redefined to mean any attempt to state why Barack Obama should not be president.

Has everyone forgotten what a real negative campaign looks like? If Hillary Clinton were in that business, she would have plastered Reverend Wright's face on every television set in the primary states.

From Paul Krugman's latest:

But how negative has the Clinton campaign been, really? Yes, it ran an ad that included Osama bin Laden in a montage of crisis images that also included the Great Depression and Hurricane Katrina. To listen to some pundits, you’d think that ad was practically the same as the famous G.O.P. ad accusing Max Cleland of being weak on national security.

The kitchen sink versus the full assault. Many progblogs refer to -- but, tellingly, do not quote -- an alleged memo which supposedly revealed that Hillary's campaign was going to embark on a "kitchen sink" strategy. Does such a memo exist? You can read the truth in this NYT piece from February 26. (Thanks to reader Scotty, who always helps me when he's trying to knock me down.)

The phrase was actually one Clinton aide's characterization of a round of speeches in which she pursued "five lines of attack." In other words, she would give a speech offering five reasons not to vote for Obama -- as opposed to, say, two or three reasons.

Cah-MON. Is that really out of bounds?

Glancing at coverage of speeches she gave during that period, I believe that her "attacks" were mostly policy stuff. For example, she said that her opponent lacks experience in foreign policy. Well, he does lack experience, and she damn well ought to say so. What the hell is a political candidate supposed to do -- go around the country saying "My opponent is a peach of a fellow"?

By contrast, we know that the Obama campaign has explicitly embraced a strategy of no-holds-barred "full assault" negative campaigning -- assailing Hillary on character issues rather than policy matters. See here and here and here and here.

They've called her every name in the book and resurrected every anti-Clinton lie from the 1990s. Through their internet surrogates, they've labeled her a "corporatist" (her voting record says otherwise), a "conservative" (despite her 100% ADA rating), and a "Republican in disguise" (despite her being to the left of Obama on health care, energy and other issues). The Obamabots demanded to see Hillary's tax returns, insinuating or stating that she must be hiding drug money or similar naughtiness. Not once did they ask to see McCain's returns.

The A-word. The Obamabots continually bleat that Hillary Clinton is "ambitious." Are they kidding? Barack Obama has been in the Senate since 2005, and during that short time he has accomplished little or nothing. Outside of his own ultra-liberal district, the only Republican he ever beat was Alan Keyes, who is about as popular as a spirochete. Yet now he claims the presidency as his birthright.

If that is not ambition, what is?