Beating The Drum

SCRANTON, PA -- Hillary Clinton spent Saturday celebrating the luck of the Irish at two massive St. Patrick's Day parades on opposites ends of the Keystone State.

As the senator walked, waved and held babies, including her niece Fiona, her campaign held two conference calls to highlight her commitment to Northern Ireland and hit Barack Obama on issues from Tony Rezko to tax documents.

In one call, her camp advisers slammed Obama for what they called a lack of transparency and insisted he disclose more details about his dealings with Chicago real estate developer Rezko, who is on trial for corruption. (It's worth noting that Obama has been hammering Clinton for several weeks for not releasing her tax returns, White House schedules, information about donors to her husband's presidential, and earmarks. All facts, Obama's spokesmen have said, that point to a candidate who is not forthcoming.)

In an interview published Friday in the Chicago Tribune, Obama said Rezko had raised a quarter of a million dollars for his first three political campaigns, more than had been previously thought. He promised to answer every question posed by the Trib's reporters, and the paper indicates in an editorial running tomorrow that he indeed did.

"We fully expect the Clinton campaign, given its current desperation, to do whatever it must in order to keep the Rezko tin can tied to Obama's bumper," the Trib's editors write. "When we endorsed Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination Jan. 27, we said we had formed our opinions of him during 12 years of scrutiny. We concluded that the professional judgment and personal decency with which he has managed himself and his ambition distinguish him. Nothing Obama said in our editorial board room Friday diminishes that verdict."

Still, Chief Clinton Strategist Mark Penn today called the lack of full disclosure on the Rezko matter part of a "troubling pattern", while Dep Comm Dir. Phil Singer said Obama should explain why his story about Rezko keeps changing.

Disclosure

Penn said Clinton's life was an open book compared to Obama's. Singer said Obama had only made one year of tax information available, while Clinton had filed annual disclosure forms. The NY senator will be releasing more tax information by April 15, her campaign said.

Clinton left the Obama-bashing to her campaign for today, telling reporters on her plane who asked about the Rezko issue, "I think that there are a lot of questions, and those questions deserve answers. I know that those questions are beginning to be asked, but they should be directed to Sen. Obama."

Northern Ireland

Later in the afternoon, MA Rep. Richard Neal, NY Reps. Joe Crowley and Carolyn McCarthy, Clinton's National Security Advisor Lee Feinstein and Dep National Policy Dir. Jake Sullivan held a conference call to criticize Obama for trying to diminsh Clinton's role in helping to bring peace to Northern Ireland and to question his commitment to the peace process there.

Sullivan talked about Clinton's plans for a special envoy to the region who would report directly to her should she become president, her focus on the country's economic development and her commitment to comprehensive immigration reform to help bring Irish undocumented immigrants out of the shadows.

Clinton addressed the issue of Northern Ireland in the plane media avail after the morning parade.

"When Ian Paisley and Martin McGuiness were in Washington in December, they met with me, gave me an update on where the process was and told the press the role that I played and these were the two people who were chosen to lead the government once it got back into power," she said. "So, you know, I understand the desire of my opponent to try to nitpick and bring people out to say things, but I think the record is very clear and one can, you know, look at many different sources. I don't know how many times Sen. Obama has met with the secretary of state for Northern Ireland, and I really feel, you know, very privileged that I played a role."

The campaign said they were focusing on Irish issues because some 16 percent of PA's population is Irish-American.

"When I hopped up on the stand to, you know, thank the parade organizers, you know, they just all hugged me and said thank you for everything you did for Northern Ireland, so I think it's pretty well known," the senator told reporters.

Campaign Communications Dir. Howard Wolfson said on the call the Obama campaign had stepped up its negative attacks on Clinton since losing in OH and TX because he was unable to address the concerns voters had about his readiness to lead.

Florida and Michigan

In the media avail with reporters on the plane before taking off from Pittsburgh, Clinton restated her position on Florida and Michigan, calling for the votes to be counted or for full-fledged primaries to be scheduled to give people there a chance to re-vote. She said Michigan appeared to be moving in that direction and suggested the rules of the game in these races had been unclear to voters.

"Well the rules were changed for a lot of things. I mean, you know, we saw ... New Hampshire and South Carolina change their dates, no penalties, that was in violation of the rules, so the rules have been kind of difficult for people to really understand and follow," she said. "But we are where we are and that's why I think it's important that everybody help Michigan and Florida figure out how best to, you know, meet their obligations to their voters and I think that should be the principle concern that we all have."

(NBC/NJ's ATHENA JONES)