Looks like the Clinton campaign is going to let no slight pass uncommented -- or unanswered.

There's more than meets the eye in that ongoing skirmish between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

Clinton's advisers are using the fuss to send a warning shot. They want the Obama campaign to know that everything it does will be closely scrutinized from now on and that Obama won't be getting any free shots against Clinton.

The donnybrook started when Hollywood mogul David Geffen said Hillary Clinton is too polarizing, that she should apologize for her 2002 vote in favor of the Iraq war, that her husband, Bill, has a reckless personality, and that the Clintons have a facility for lying. This prompted Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson to fire off a zinger to the media.

"By refusing to disavow the personal attacks from his biggest fundraiser against Senator Clinton and President Clinton, Senator Obama has called into serious question whether he really believes his own rhetoric," Wolfson said. "How can Senator Obama denounce the politics of slash and burn yesterday while his own campaign is espousing the politics of trash today?"

Well, given that the Clintons have exemplified the politics of white-trash for years, I suppose they would recognize the politics of trash. For that matter, the biggest problem with Geffen's comments from the standpoint of the Clinton campaign is that everything he said was true of the former First Couple. After all, Bill Clinton is a well-documented liar and lecher, and Senator Clinton's lack of candor in the many investigations of her husband's corrupt administration are well-known.

Which might explain why the Clinton campaign is working so hard to prevent any discussion of Bill Clinton's impeachment for perjury -- or any of his other shortcomings as president.

With a swift response to attacks from a former supporter last week, advisers to the New York Democrat offered a glimpse of their strategy for handling one of the most awkward chapters of her biography. They declared her husband's impeachment in 1998 -- or, more accurately, the embarrassing personal behavior that led to it -- taboo, putting her rivals on notice and all but daring other Democrats to mention the ordeal again.

"In the end, voters will decide what's off-limits, but I can't imagine that the public will reward the politics of personal destruction," senior Clinton adviser Howard Wolfson said Friday, when asked whether the impeachment is fair game for Clinton's opponents. Earlier in the week, Wolfson dismissed references to President Bill Clinton's conduct as "under the belt."

I just don't see how one uses Bill Clinton as one's biggest asset but avoids the liabilities that come with him. But Hillary Clinton wants to try.

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