Let's Play Connect the Dots

Here are two stories, seemingly unconnected, but maybe not so much. Story one deals with the Clinton campaigns new negative campaign against Barack Obama:

ABC News has learned that the campaign of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., has registered the names of two websites with the express goal of attacking her chief rival, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, the first time this election cycle a presidential campaign has launched a website with the express purpose of criticizing a rival.

"Votingpresent.com" and "Votingpresent.org" are domains hosted by the same IP address as official Clinton websites, such as TheHillaryIKnow.com website, which was launched with much fanfare this week.

The Clinton campaign intends to use these new websites to paint Obama as cowardly. ...

Clinton's campaign has also introduced, quietly, a website called Attacktimeline.com, which Clinton officials say chronicles the ways Obama and former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., were criticizing her publicly long before she began returning fire.

And then there's this story in today's New York Times:

In 1999, Barack Obama was faced with a difficult vote in the Illinois legislature — to support a bill that would let some juveniles be tried as adults, a position that risked drawing fire from African-Americans, or to oppose it, possibly undermining his image as a tough-on-crime moderate.

In the end, Mr. Obama chose neither to vote for nor against the bill. He voted “present,” effectively sidestepping the issue, an option he invoked nearly 130 times as a state senator.

You don't suppose the Times could be part of the Clinton campaign apparatus, do you?