So Drudge has somehow obtained an email circulated by Clinton campaign staffers, consisting of a photo of Obama dressed in traditional Somali clothing. The picture was taken in 2006 in Kenya, and depicts Obama wearing, among other things, a turban. (See the perceived problem?) Supposedly one Clinton staffer wrote to another, “Wouldn’t we be seeing this on the cover of every magazine if it were HRC?” This prompted the Obama camp to slam the hell outta Hillary:
“On the very day that Senator Clinton is giving a speech about restoring respect for America in the world, her campaign has engaged in the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering we’ve seen from either party in this election.”
And the Clinton campaign’s response:
“Enough. If Barack Obama’s campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him wearing traditional Somali clothing is divisive, they should be ashamed.”
So who’s wrong here? Actually, I think it was a tie.
Barack’s campaign is responding as if Hillary Herself was out in front on this, when in reality it was probably the doing of some unimportant volunteer underling, if her camp’s involved at all. (That is, however, the danger of her campaign not keeping their game tight. Furthermore, we really haven’t seen crap like this coming out of the Obama camp, not even his unimportant volunteer underlings. And I think that says something.)
However, Hillary’s heckling of Obama’s over-outrage is just flat-out dumb. Yeah, I’m so sure that the Obama campaign thinks that traditional Somali clothing is divisive. Good one.
In the end, this will probably end up harming Clinton more than Obama, because it feeds right into the “typical Washington politics” angle. It’s too bad for her, but hey – this story wouldn’t have nearly as much traction if her campaign had kept a better lid on all those other campaign surrogate attacks. What goes around…
Reflections of Ryberg 
Leave a Reply