(Updated) It’s Clinton’s Turn in the Spotlight

Barack Obama’s speech on race and religion, called a seminal moment in the presidential campaign even by some conservatives, is now history and the spotlight is about the shift to Hillary Clinton. And perhaps uncomfortably so for someone who has spent so much time attacking her opponent on the issue of experience.

This is because of the long awaited and much anticipated release by the National Archives of thousands of pages of records from Clinton’s days in the White House as First Lady (photo), including speeches, logs of visitors and other details.

Central to the release is whether the records back up her contention that those years were a key element of her “35 years of experience” or merely are a detailed account of the daily grind of a woman who played a tangential role in domestic policy-making and had no role at all in foreign policy.

The Guardian’s initial examination of the records found that “she was often far from the site of decision-making during some of the most pivotal events of Bill Clinton’s presidency.”

The records are being released in response to a suit brought under the Freedom of Information Act by the conservative group, Judicial Watch.

The development is also likely to bring unwanted attention to the continued refusal of the Clintons to release their tax records. While Obama and John McCain have done so, the Clintons continue to stonewall, creating the impression that the candidate’s calls for transparency in government don’t include herself and that the records contain potentially embarrassing information that would hurt her struggling campaign.