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Will Axelrod Be Fired?

In December, 2007, Senator Obama made crystal clear that he would not tolerate opposition research seeking to tear down the other Democratic contenders for the nomination.

?I have been very clear to my campaign. I do not want to see research that is involved in trying to tear people down personally,? Mr. Obama said. ?If I find out that somebody is doing that, they will be fired. And I have been absolutely crystal clear about this, and I have been clear about this for a very long time.?

It doesn't get more emphatic than that. Anyone doing opposition research to tear down Hillary will be fired.

And so David Axelrod, Obama's campaign manager, may be about to get the proverbial ax. He has stated that he wants to look at Hillary's tax returns in order to find out if anything questionable is on them.

For example, here are eight pieces of information that could be learned from her tax returns, the accompanying schedules, and attachments:

Effective tax rate ? including whether or not any tax shelters were used to reduce it
Amount of income for spouses by source
Amount of stock gains and losses
Gross income for the couple
Amount earned from stock dividends
Amount of household employment taxes paid
Personal exemptions taken
Charitable contributions made

Wow. A damning admission on Axelrod's part. He doesn't want to just have the returns in hand as a transparency matter. He wants to review her exemptions, charitable contributions, stock dividends, and so on.

I would find it hard to argue that this isn't opposition research designed to attack Senator Clinton.

And that being the case, I think Obama has made crystal clear he will fire David Axelrod.

Except for the fact that of course he won't.

Full post as published by Expressio Unius on March 06, 2008 (boomark / email).