Clinton Skewered, Panetta Criticizes Campaign

Hillary Clinton is being skewered on television shows today for her catty remarks during Tuesday night's debate with Barack Obama and, as if her sputtering campaign and questionable debate demeanor weren't burden enough for her, she's also being criticized for her campaign's shortcomings.

Speaking out today is a prominent member of the political team that famously used the phrase “It’s the economy, stupid” to help Bill Clinton vault to victory in 1992.

Clinton has slipped from “inevitable” front-runner to second fiddle over the past two months, and political observers have chimed in with their take on what went wrong: No plan for after Super Tuesday. A poor caucus strategy. Her husband.

Leon Panetta, former White House chief of staff to Bill Clinton, is the latest Clinton loyalist to come out and criticize the campaign. And he suggests the problem was all of the above.

“It seems to me like they rolled the dice on Super Tuesday, thinking that would end it,” Panetta told The New York Observer. “And when it didn’t end it, they didn’t have a plan. And when it came to the caucus states, they did have a plan — which was to ignore them. I think those were serious mistakes.”

MSNBC, which sponsored Tuesday night's debate, characterized Clinton's performance thus: Her most memorable moment — the one that seemed destined to be replayed in the days ahead — was not, say, a sharp rejoinder to Mr. Obama that might undermine his credentials and tilt undecided voters toward her. Rather, it was when she invoked a “Saturday Night Live” skit from last Saturday that showed television journalists fawning over Mr. Obama, another example of her campaign’s increasing frustration over what it considers unbalanced coverage of the Democratic race.

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