An early tussle over Hollywood's war chest

In her run for the White House, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton eventually was going to face the legacy of the more unsavory episodes of her husband's two terms as president. But in a surprise Wednesday, the first person to draw wide attention to some of the old controversies was not a Republican candidate or the "vast, right-wing conspiracy" that the Clintons have assailed, but a leading liberal at the heart of Hollywood.

Comments from entertainment mogul David Geffen, which were highly critical of the Clintons, reverberated through the presidential campaign and prompted the first direct attacks between the camps of Clinton -- a New York senator -- and Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois. Considered the two leading Democratic candidates, they until now had traded only gentle jabs in genteel language.

Geffen talked about why he had soured on the Clintons, his longtime allies, and was instead backing Obama. He called Sen. Clinton an "incredibly polarizing figure," criticized her husband's 2001 pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich and suggested that Bill Clinton's personal habits would damage his wife's campaign, hurting Democratic hopes of retaking the White House next year.

"Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it's troubling," Geffen said of the Clintons in a New York Times interview published Wednesday.

The comments marked an escalation in the battle between Sen. Clinton and Obama for Hollywood money. Geffen, who had raised millions of dollars for the Clintons over the years, on Tuesday hosted a $1.3-million fundraiser for Obama.

His remarks prompted the Clinton campaign to demand that Obama sever all ties to Geffen and return his campaign donations, citing Obama's past denunciation of "slash and burn" tactics. The interview also sparked a brawl of the billionaires in Los Angeles.

Responding to Geffen's comments, media mogul and Clinton supporter Haim Saban said: "David is allowing his emotions to cloud his better judgment, and I'm frankly surprised, to say the least, at the venom in his statement."

Saban, who made a fortune on the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, wrote in an e-mail to the Los Angeles Times that Geffen "knows in his heart of heart, that Hillary is the most qualified person to be the next president of the USA. Why would he lie to himself?"