I'll try to stay on top of this as to whom exactly sent out this picture from the Hillary camp. The story is changing as the day goes on.Now, Howard Wolfson has responded
Hillary needs to fight for this nomination with everything she has. Everything that's out there on Obama so the people can be fully informed and make their own decisions. They need to wake up from this fairy tale called Obama that they are so wrapped up in. Innocent or not, all the facts need to be laid out there on the table for the voters to see and absorb. Enough of this crap where Obama is untouchable in the press and anything he's ever done is taboo to bring out in the media. Obama's connections to Kenya not only have not been fully vetted, they haven't been investigated at all! This is insane!
This is freaking nonsense to see our media act like this especially after 7 years of Bush.
"Wouldn't we be seeing this on the cover of every magazine if it were HRC?" questioned one campaign staffer. Yes, there's a huge double standard in these campaigns and if it were a pic of Hillary someone found, it would be the front cover on Newsweek and Time.
Here's a portion of Salon's article, of course, explaining it away in favor of Obama:
In case you were growing tired of fights over NAFTA, lofty rhetoric, and debates, the Democrats have a new spat du jour for you. Today, the Drudge Report posted a big, fat headline that howled, “Clinton staffers circulate ‘dressed’ Obama.” Accompanying the headline was a picture of Obama on a diplomatic trip to Kenya in 2006, wearing some type of traditional dress of the area—complete with a turban-looking headdress.
The picture was taken while Obama was in Wajir, a rural desert area in the northeast of Kenya. I spoke with Mark Bellamy, a former ambassador to Kenya and a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who told me that Wajir is a pastoral town of about 5,000 people—almost all of whom are Muslim. Bellamy—who hasn’t declared his preference in the presidential race—didn’t recognize the “outfit” but said it wasn’t Islamic garb. He thought it was probably some sort of traditional Somali-Kenyan dress and that the people hosting Obama offered it to him as a sign of hospitality. “Wherever I travel I get dressed up in same way,” he said, “out of consideration for the hosts.”
Obama’s campaign is offering a similar line. On a conference call, retired Air Force Gen. Scott Gration said Obama was just being polite by trying on the garment. They compared it to when you open up gifts at Christmas—even if you don’t like that ugly sweater, you still try it on so your aunt smiles. As a friend pointed out, responding with that logic allows Obama’s campaign not only to push back against the Manchurian-Muslim rumors but also remind voters that Obama’s a Christian and he gets crappy Christmas gifts like the rest of the country.
