Clinton accuses Obama of working with a slumlord

This seems like an incredibly stupid accusation for the junior Senator from New York to throw around:

CLINTON: ... I was fighting against those ideas when you were practicing law and representing your contributor, Resco, in his slum landlord business in inner city Chicago.
....
OBAMA: ... I was an associate at a law firm that represented a church group that had partnered with this individual to do a project and I did about five hours worth of work on this joint project. That's what she's referring to.

That's a pretty cheap shot from Hillary, who should know from personal experience that a candidate can't always vet every contributor that supports a campaign. After all, this was pretty big news a few months back:

A federal grand jury on Tuesday indicted Norman Hsu, a top Democratic fundraiser accused of cheating investors of at least $20 million and using some of the money to make illegal donations to political campaigns.

There's also this:

A Pakistani immigrant who hosted fundraisers in Southern California for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is being sought by the FBI on charges that he funneled illegal contributions to Clinton’s political action committee and Sen. Barbara Boxer’s 2004 reelection campaign. Authorities say Northridge businessman Abdul Rehman Jinnah, 56, fled the country after an indictment accused him of engineering more than $50,000 in illegal donations to the Democratic committees. A business associate charged as a co-conspirator has entered a guilty plea and is scheduled to be sentenced in Los Angeles next week.

And some people might think she should have had better control over her own staff:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's former finance director has been indicted on charges of filing fictitious reports that misstated contributions for a Hollywood fund-raising gala for the senator, the Justice Department said Friday.

Of course, her husband's administration was occasionally associated with unsavory characters as well:

A Federal grand jury today indicted a Thai businesswoman who worked as a Washington lobbyist on charges that she and her family funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars in foreign money to the Democratic Party to gain access for her clients to President Clinton and members of the Administration.

She's bound to remember this:

President Clinton's eleventh-hour pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich has sparked a firestorm of controversy, launching investigations in both houses of Congress and igniting fierce protest from both Democrats and Republicans.

[F]ederal prosecutors in New York officially opened a criminal investigation into whether Rich did indeed buy his pardon with his ex-wife Denise's pointed largesse to the First Couple and the Democratic party.

As for actually working for clients who were later indicted, Hillary fought off these accusations for the entire 8 years her husband was in the Oval Office:

Ms. Clinton and her attorney have stated publicly that the billing records confirm that, as an attorney at the Rose Firm in the mid-80's, she was not significantly involved in the representation of Jim McDougal's savings and loan, Madison Guaranty.

According to the Rose records, Hillary Clinton billed Madison for 60 hours of work over a 15 month period. Ms. Clinton's attorney argues that this represents a de minimus amount of work and includes billings for work performed by Rose Finn lawyers working for Hillary Clinton at the time.

That was the trigger for the investigation that led to Bill's impeachment in 1998.

Hillary may be gambling that Barack won't retaliate with dirt of his own. But Republicans will definitely remember during the general election. It'd be better if she didn't legitimize their attacks herself.