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CLINTON STAFFERS CIRCULATE 'DRESSED' OBAMA
Mon Feb 25 2008 06:51:00 ET
With a week to go until the Texas and Ohio primaries, stressed Clinton staffers circulated a photo over the weekend of a "dressed" Barack Obama.
The photo, taken in 2006, shows the Democrat frontrunner fitted as a Somali Elder, during his visit to Wajir, a rural area in northeastern Kenya.
The senator was on a five-country tour of Africa.
"Wouldn't we be seeing this on the cover of every magazine if it were HRC?" questioned one campaign staffer, in an email obtained by the DRUDGE REPORT.
In December, the campaign asked one of its volunteer county coordinators in Iowa to step down after the person forwarded an e-mail falsely stating that Barack Obama is a Muslim.
Obama campaign manager David Plouffe quickly accused the Clinton campaign Monday of 'shameful offensive fear-mongering' for circulating the snap. [1]
Clinton campaign manager Maggie Williams responds: "If Barack Obama's campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him wearing traditional Somali clothing is divisive, they should be ashamed."
Developing...
[Drudge Report] EDITOR'S NOTE: Other leaders have worn local costumes:
BuzzFlash Note: This is the first item that we have ever posted from the Drudge Report, courtesy of the Clinton campaign. The Clinton campaign wants the Obama image to sear into the brain of those who will associate it with Africans and Arabs (the Osama look?). We just want to barf at these reprehensible tactics. Hillary Clinton has lost all credibility as a person of integrity and basic decency.
Additional BuzzFlash Note: Response from Hillary Clinton's campaign to the objections of the Obama campaign at this kind of racial, Drudge Report gutter tactic. See the statement of Clinton's Campaign Manager. [2] The Clinton campaign doesn't deny it placed the photo; it doesn't renounce the e-mail; it doesn't acknowledge the race card; instead, it blames the Obama campaign.
BuzzFlash Update from USA TODAY: [3]
We've asked the Clinton campaign for its comment. The Politico writes that "the Clinton campaign did not deny the charge, but did not comment further."
Update at 10:58 a.m. ET. This statement was just e-mailed to reporters from Maggie Williams, manager of the Clinton campaign:
"Enough.
"If Barack Obama's campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him wearing traditional Somali clothing is divisive, they should be ashamed. Hillary Clinton has worn the traditional clothing of countries she has visited and had those photos published widely.
"This is nothing more than an obvious and transparent attempt to distract from the serious issues confronting our country today and to attempt to create the very divisions they claim to decry."
"We will not be distracted."
Update at 12:35 p.m. ET:
Clinton campaign spokesman Mo Elleithee has told USA TODAY's Kathy Kiely that he doesn't know if anyone on the Clinton staff circulated the photo. He also says, Kathy reports, that "if the point someone on our staff is trying to make is that the press treats us differently; it does."
Also: Earlier we referred to what Obama was wearing as "Somali," as Drudge had reported. The Associated Press is calling it "traditional, local" garb. The senator was in Kenya at the time, near the border with Somalia.
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Technorati Tags: Analysis [9] Clinton [10] Obama [11] Race [12]