Memeorandum has lots of various links, here and here about this spat.

The Clintons have made a few comments that are a bit hard to swallow, and their supporters have stepped in to defend them.

What Hillary supporter Robert L. Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television, said

Over the weekend, Black Entertainment Television founder Robert L. Johnson took the stage next to Hillary Clinton and smeared Barack Obama twice. (Video of Johnson’s comment here.) The Clintons–she and The Big He–and their operatives have been under fire for their race-baiting tactics and suggestive remarks about Obama’s admitted drug use.

Judging from Johnson’s remarks, the down-and-dirty Clintons have no intention of backing off.

 Bill himself took to the radio and made not only his case to defend his and her remarks, but to defend Johnson's:

President Clinton Does More Damage Control on Black Radio 

In an interview Monday, President Clinton mounted a less-than-vigorous defense of comments a prominent supporter of Senator Clinton's presidential bid, Robert Johnson, made which many interpreted as a reference to Senator Obama's admission of drug use during his younger years.

The interviewer, Roland Martin of WVON-AM in Chicago, played Mr. Johnson's statement Sunday in which he praised the Clintons for having "been deeply and emotionally involved in black issues since Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood - and I won't say what he was doing, but he said it in the book…" Mr. Martin sounded incredulous about Mr. Johnson's subsequent denial, in a statement issued by the Clinton campaign, that he was referring to drug use by Mr. Obama. "When you listen to that tone and the inflection, he was not talking about community organizing. It seems to me very clear what he was implying," Mr. Martin said.

"Ironically, this is the first time I've heard it, what you just said," Mr. Clinton said. "I listened to it on the tape and I think we have to take him at his word."

Mr. Clinton then launched into a defense of his "fairy tale" comments from New Hampshire which had not been raised at that point.

Obama and his camp initially expressed outrage, then he took a more conciliatory public position:

ABC News' David Wright, Andy Fies, and Sunlen Miller Report: Sen. Barack Obama told ABC News Monday there is nothing in Sen. Hillary Clinton's record that would give him any cause for concern about her in terms of racial politics.

Asked how Obama interpreted two recent remarks by the Clintons that prompted an angry reaction from some in the Black community, Obama sought to damp down the racial dynamics of the controversy.

Many African Americans were offended when Hillary Clinton told an interviewer in New Hampshire, "Martin Luther King's dream became a reality when Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964." 

Some say she seemed to suggest that it took a white politician to fulfill a black man's dream.

"I don't think it was in any way a racial comment," Obama told ABC News.  "That's something that has played out in the press.  That's not my view."

But...

But, he said, the comment was revealing about her political character.  "I do think it was indicative of the perspective that she brings, which is that what happens in Washington is more important than what happens outside of Washington," he said.

He said he believes the quote betrays a belief on her part, "that the intricacies of the legislative process were somehow more significant than when ordinary people rise up and march and go to jail and fight for justice." 

He called that a "fundamental difference" between them.

However, the Obama camp was caught with a memo they prepared that detailed all racially overtoned comments:

 Obama Camp's Memo on Clintons' Politicizing Race

Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign has prepared a detailed memo listing various instances in which it perceived Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign to have deliberately played the race card in the Democratic primary. [See the full memo here.] (The memo is at the bottom of the source page-LSU)

The memo, which was obtained by the Huffington Post and has been made public elsewhere, is believed to have been given to an activist and contains mostly excerpts from different media reports. It lists the contact info and name of Obama's South Carolina press secretary, Amaya Smith, and is broken down into five incidents in which either Clinton, her husband Bill, or campaign surrogates made comments that could be interpreted as racially insensitive.

The document provides an indication that, in private, the Obama campaign is seeking to capitalize on the view - and push the narrative - that the Clintons are using race-related issues for political leverage. In public, the Obama campaign has denied that they are trying to propagate such a perception, noting that the document never was sent to the press.

It is easy to conclude they had the race card ready for full attack, or for an accidental disclosure to incite some public outrage.

Hot Air rightly calls this what it is:

Obama camp circulating memo highlighting Team Hillary’s racial “nuance”

Tough call for righties, as it pits two core conservative experiences against each other — false accusations of racism by the left for political advantage and faith in the fact that there are no depths to which the Clintons will not sink. Ace calls this a taste of what Republicans will be getting by the barge-load if Obama’s the nominee, but that’s not quite true. In the general election the media will do all this work for him. In the primary, in a contest of people of Pure Heart, his campaign’s got to nudge them along. See, for example, this comically anguished semi-apology from Josh Marshall to his readers for even covering the racial angles, urging them to exercise caution in jumping to conclusions about ill intent and command and control. This is the same guy, you’ll recall, whose outfit gleefully accused the GOP of racism last year for running an ad targeting Harold Ford that dared to feature timpani — drums — in the background.

 I call it what I always do:  Politics.

When the desire to win overrides the desire to serve, then any means can be justified.

In my opinion, this campaign has only just begun to get nasty.  Both sides have carefully laid the ground work to defend attacks, playing the race card on one side, and the gender card on the other.

Here comes the mud...

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