After three weeks of struggling mightily to code, encrypt, and in general repress any direct public expression of their mutual antagonism, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama finally made it clear how much they simply dislike one another last night. In the nastiest debate of the primary campaign so far, Clinton had apparently come prepared with reams of oppo research committed to memory and went to the well so many times with it that she was eventually, loudly booed. Obama, meanwhile, turned out not to be so above it all, after all; he only had one particularly gratuitous swipe, but it was a doozy:

I was working on those streets watching those folks see their jobs shift overseas, you were a corporate lawyer sitting on the board at Wal-Mart.

Clinton's response was a tactical, if not a moral masterpiece --- accusing Obama of having been a consigliere for a slumlord in Chicago. The real story here, unsurprisingly, is basically benign, if a bit convoluted. But the point of levelling a charge like that has nothing to do with its truth or falsity. The point is to convey the message: "Everyone knows I'm crooked like the next politician. You're dreaming if you think Barack is any different." That's why Obama can't win in an exchange like this: No ethical indictment of Hillary Clinton, however true, tarnishes her already disreputable public image; no comparable indictment of Barack Obama, however false, fails to dull the lustre of his reputation somewhat.

Both candidates probably had these considerations in mind when their hostilities took a revealing meta turn. After the initial volley of insults from Clinton, and Obama's consequent charge of dishonesty at both Clintons, Hillary made this point:

Now, I'm just saying that if we're going to...be hurling these charges against one another, I'm used to taking the incoming fire. I've taken it for 16 years. But when you get into this arena...you can't expect to have a hands-off attitude about your record. And it is perfectly fair to have comparisons and contrasts.

But of course, Hillary Clinton doesn't regard the 16 years of "incoming fire" she bravely endured as anything approaching "perfectly fair." Rather, she regards it as an illegitimate effort by nefarious, scheming, hidden right-wing interests to bring her down. Note though, that what makes her perceived ordeal illicit is not that the accusations right-wingers made against her and her husband were false; many of them were false, but many of them were true, and the true accusations are just as offensive to her as the false ones. (Clintonite hatchet-man Howard Wolfson captured this attitude perfectly earlier in the day, asserting that the claim that Bill Clinton is lying is a right-wing talking point.)

So while Hillary Clinton's message to the audience in referencing her 16 years of cross-bearing is a continuation of her "ready on day one" theme, the message to Obama is: "I know these attacks are bullshit, and I know you know they're bullshit, but I'm going to keep making them all the same. I dare you to do something about it."

Which is why the majority of Obama's parries --- which were at best stoic, and at worst Dukakisesque --- were so unsatisfying. Here was a perfect opportunity for Obama to practice the new politics he keeps gesturing at. He could have said something like "That's right, Hillary, for 16 years you have been the target of all manner of malicious character assassination. And the lesson you took away from that experience is to be just as malicious, just as dishonest, just as corrosive to the democratic process as the people who antagonized you. Well, I'm here to say that the American people can do a lot better than another four years of the knife-in-the-back politics you're peddling to them." That would have been your Youtube moment.

Instead, Obama was rattled and said something about the need for consistency. Debates are clearly not his best forum. Still, Clinton's approach to the debate was unnecessarily, and to my mind, crazily risky. At this point, she is the clear frontrunner, even if, as is likely, she loses South Carolina. Her attacks on Obama last night were no less brutish and mendacious than her campaign's previous attacks on him, but she herself had remained at least one degree separated from the worst of it, and could plausibly deny her involvement in gutter politics. Not anymore.

She might have behaved like a front-runner should, as if his or her opponents don't exist, and left negative campaigning up to ads and surrogates. But she just couldn't resist whipping out the garotte herself. The "slumlord" remark was particularly vicious and surplus to requirements, and most importantly, connects her directly to the racial demagogy her campaign has been wallowing in on her behalf. Democrats just might decide that the Clinton tactics --- from Rickey Ray Rector to the Barack Hussein Obama robocalls --- have passed their expiration date. Here's hoping.