Intellectual Property Law

New York Sen. Hillary Clinton may be staying mum on the campaign trail in the wake of the Eliot Spitzer scandal involving his patronage of pricey prostitutes, but her campaign's making it clear that the Democratic presidential candidate isn't one to abandon her allies at times of crisis.

Clinton's "Fact Hub" pointedly disputes a report on Radar magazine's blog that accused Clinton's staff of scrubbing references to Spitzer's endorsement from the campaign website.

Radar pointed to Clinton's endorsement page, noting that there was no reference to Spitzer. That was quickly picked up by the Los Angeles Times' Andrew Malcolm on the Times' politics blog Top of the Ticket.

Clinton's staff responded with a web riposte on its Fact Hub site noting that it had never posted a press release about Spitzer's endorsement, or fellow New York senator Chuck Schumer's endorsement for that matter.

The campaign noted that it has kept severalmentions of Spitzer up on its site in a couple of old blog posts from last year, and an event invitation.

The campaigns of both Clinton and rival Barack Obama have been actively using their "fact-checking" websites to address rumors swirling through e-mail and on the web, as well as charges from their rivals and others in the media that they feel are unfair.

Clinton's campaign on Tuesday also used its Fact Hub to immediately undercut the credibility of a damning editorial in The New York Times from Harvard sociology professor Orlando Patterson.

Patterson's op-ed piece charged that Clinton's 3 a.m. campaign ad had racial overtones and sought to use coded language and images to divide the electorate.

Clinton's campaign responded by posting a picture of "an African American child" who was featured in the ad on its Fact Hub website.   

Spitzer's resignation Wednesday leaves Clinton with one less superdelegate.

See Also:

• Democrats Use Web to Catalogue Each Others' Attacks
• Obama: I'm not a Muslim! Forward This To Everyone You Know

Image: Matt Law