Pics of Obama in Muslim Garb Circulated on Web
Media news aggregation site The Drudge Report is reporting that Clinton staffers are distributing pictures of Barack Obama dressed in the traditional garb of a Somali elder. The picture was taken in 2006 while Obama was on a five-country tour of Africa.
This is the photo being distributed around the Internet of Sen. Barack Obama in traditional Somali garb.
AP photo
"Wouldn't we be seeing this on the cover of every magazine if it were HRC?" wrote one campaign staffer in an email allegedly obtained by the Drudge Report.
"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," Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said in an e-mail to reporters.
But in an e-mail response just sent out by the Clinton campaign, they say Obama should be "ashamed."
"If Barack Obama's campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him wearing traditional Somali clothing is divisive, they should be ashamed," said Maggie Williams, the Clinton campaign manager. "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.
Drudge also included photos of other U.S. politicians dressed in native garb during visits to foreign countries, including Clinton.
Meanwhile, Andrew Sullivan of The Daily Dish writes that if the Clinton campaign wanted to push the Obama family's connections to Islam in front of the U.S. public, it would have been easier for the Clinton campaign to just distribute this column about Obama's Kenyan family by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.
11:35 AM ET | 02-25-2008 | permalink

