Clinton Camp Wraps Obama in Muslim Garb
February 28, 2008 – 6:03 amBarack Obama has had to spend hours on the campaign trail debunking the lie that he is Muslim. This story first circulated via a right-wing email smear campaign, as my colleague Chris Hayes documented, but has since taken on a life of its own, spawning more and more fantastic conspiracies about Obama.
Today the story took an even more bizarre turn, when Drudge posted a picture of Obama dressed as a traditional Somali elder on a trip back to Kenya in 2006. The photo of Obama, in a white sash and white turban, was clearly meant to stoke the “Obama is a Muslim” flames. More worrisome, Drudge says he received the photo from “Clinton staffers.”
That revelation prompted one of the most bizarre non-denial denials in recent political history. “There are 700 people in our organization,” the Clinton campaign told blogger Marc Ambinder. “We can’t be sure that it didn’t come from us. It is not the intent of the campaign to release this picture to tarnish Senator Obama in any way, but if someone in the campaign thinks the Obama camp gets treated differently by the media, well, they’re right.”
So essentially camp Clinton is saying: it may or may not have been us, but even if it was us, that’s fine, because the media is biased in favor of Barack Obama. Does the end always justify the means? A stunt like this is almost guaranteed to backfire on Clinton, like so many of the campaign’s previous attacks. It was in poor taste to begin with, and the spin thereafter was clumsy and incoherent, reinforcing the fears among many Democrats that Clinton may attempt to tear apart Obama on the road to defeat.its will be strange.
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