Hillary to Obama: “Quit it! You’re hurting me! I’m telling!”

Hillary went so far over the edge on her Scoldy Locks rant in Ohio this weekend that she may have engendered more sympathy for Obama than herself.

At issue were a couple of campaign flyers mailed to Ohio voters by the Obama campaign that Clinton says misrepresented her stand on health care and trade.

"Shame on you, Barack Obama," she said "It is time you ran a campaign consistent with your messages and public. That's what I expect from you. Meet me in Ohio. Let's have a debate about your tactics and your behavior on this campaign."

Words on a page can’t quite convey the venom, so watch the video and see if it makes you feel like you’d rather be someplace else, like when you end up having dinner with a couple in the middle of a major argument. I half expected her to start wagging ehr finger at me and say "I did not have politcal relations with that man, Mr Obama!"

So much for going gently into the night for Hillary Clinton.

Trouble is, she’s playing rough herself and calling foul at the same time.

FactCheck.org says both campaigns use commonplace political tactics of misleading voters about the other candidate:

“We said the mailer "lacks context" and stretches the facts, but we can't agree that it is "false" as Clinton says.

“We find that a mailer criticizing her position on trade is indeed misleading. One that attacks her health care plan we have previously described as straining the facts, though not exactly "false."
• Trade: A mailer showing a locked plant gate quotes Clinton as saying she believed NAFTA was "a boon" to the economy. Those are not her words and Obama was wrong to put quote marks around them. In fact, she's been described by a biographer as privately opposing NAFTA in the White House.
• Health Care: A second mailer said Clinton's health care plan "forces everyone to buy insurance, even if you can't afford it." We have previously said that mailer "lacks context" and strains the facts. But both Obama and Clinton have been exaggerating their differences on this issue.
“We've also previously criticized Clinton for sending a mailer that twisted Obama's words and gave a false picture of his proposals on Social Security, home foreclosures and energy.

“Clinton is no innocent on sending out misleading mailers. We reported on Feb. 6 that a mailing by her campaign contained a "big distortion" of Obama's position on Social Security taxes and falsely implied that he had "no plan" to address mortgage foreclosures. It also attacked him for voting for a "Dick Cheney" energy bill that gave "huge tax breaks to oil companies," when in fact the bill gave a net tax increase to oil companies.”

The next debate probably won’t be nearly as civil as the last one. Try taking a drink every time one of the talking heads in debate analysis invokes some version of the phrase “the gloves come off” and see how long you last.