Already under the gun for appearing so desperate as to attack Sen. Obama’s kindergarten record, we’re also learning Sen. Clinton is skipping a few facts in another line of attack she’s using. It’s bad enough when conservatives twist facts and ignore context in order to infopimp an attack. But does Sen. Clinton also need to do it?

The Clinton campaign has been hounding Sen. Obama for a series of votes on abortion issues during his time in the Illinois State Senate. Their gripe is that he voted “present” rather than for or against the Republican-sponsored bills.

What the Clinton camp fails to explain (either out of ignorance or an intentional attempt at misleading voters) is that the strategy of voting “present” on those bills was a caucus strategy designed to blunt then-Sen. President Pate Phillips’ (R) divisive ploys in which he tried to wedge Democrats apart from each other.

And, in fact, according to Rich Miller it wasn’t just a caucus strategy but a strategy devise by Planned Parenthood, which opposed Pres. Phillips’ divisive measures. Sayeth local PP head Pam Sutherland, “The poor guy is getting all this heat for a strategy we, the pro-choice community, did.” Rich has much more on the history of that time in the Illinois State Senate — including updates to his original post noting that Sen. Obama has been routinely attacked by conservatives like Jill Stanek, Fran Eaton and a Marylander named Alan Keyes for blocking similar anti-abortion bills in later years.

Sen. Clinton might want to read up on it, as should the Chicago Tribune’s veteran political reporters Rick Pearson and Mike Dorning after they bought her talking points hook, line and sinker in a story they ran this morning.

If she wants to harp on him for voting present instead of yeah or nay then she should do so; no need to ignore the context of the situation. Keep it clean.