The American Spectator

Washington Prowler

p> IN RENOLAND br> Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was eager, according to campaign aides, to attack former Sen. Fred Thompson for his remarks about Cuba being a state supporter of terrorists. "Our porous border is unable to distinguish between friend and foe. My feeling is that Cuban Americans share this concern," Thompson said last week. /p>

He further warned that a terrorist-backing Cuba matched with Hugo Chavez's desire to "go nuclear" in Venezuela would create additional security challenges for the United States.

Comparatively, a sober view, no? Not to Clinton. "Everyone is attacking Fred Thompson right now, because he's the frontrunner. She wanted to slap him around a little bit, even if there wasn't anything to slap him around over," says a campaign aide.

So Clinton went out and said she was shocked that Thompson would lump members of the Cuban diaspora with terrorists, something Thompson did not do.

There's a reason Clinton attempted to hit Thompson: her own record with Cubans is shoddy at best. Recall, that back during the Elian Gonzalez crisis, she went out and announced that Elian's seizure -- by goons sent in by her husband's attorney general -- ''was accomplished rapidly and without injury.''

"Yeah, we've got a problem with that statement and all the pictures of that scared little boy hiding in the closet with all of those automatic weapons in his face," says the campaign adviser. "When we mentioned this to our policy guys, they didn't care. We're at a stage now where we have to attack Thompson, create an image in the public of who we want him to be, and then move on to lesser guys like Romney. It's Giuliani who we're not going to be beating up any time soon."

p> GUEST STARRING ROLE

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