No More Mr. Nice Barack

Obama plans to offset slipping poll numbers by getting in Hillary's face, calling her shady on foreign policy and too divisive to win in 2008, the New York Times reports. Critics say that two-fisted politics would betray Obama's "politics of hope," a charge he rejects: “Every time we point out a difference between me and her, they say, ‘What happened to the politics of hope?’ which is just silly."

But he admits to holding back on verbal strikes during his nine-month campaign, and now donors are urging him to go on offense. Yet he bristles when critics say he can't handle aggressive politics. The notion that "we’re all holding hands and singing ‘Kumbaya’ is obviously not what I had in mind and not how I function. And anybody who thinks I have, hasn’t been paying attention.” (More Election 2008 stories.)