Well, that didn’t take long. Last night on the radio show I actually gave Hillary some credit. I said that she would fight through the Ohio and Texas primaries, but she would not do anything to damage her viability for 2012 and beyond. I said she had more class than her husband (damning with faint praise, I know) and that she would not use a General Sherman scorched earth strategy.
At first glance, it looks like I was wrong on all counts. Here’s Drudge this morning,
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.
Hillary has to come out today and distance herself from this, doesn’t she? Tired and stressed staffers talking amongst themselves. This isn’t a campaign strategy, but private email, etc.
She should ask if this any worse than Che flags in Obama’s campaign offices?
Otherwise, she’s ok with it, and the next two weeks could get extremely ugly.
UPDATE: Obama slams photo
Obama campaign manager David Plouffe accused the Clinton campaign Monday of “shameful offensive fear-mongering” by circulating a photo as an attempted smear.
The silence from Hillary is deafening.
UPDATE II: Hillary’s new hatchet woman, er, campaign chief, Maggie Williams, defends,
If Barack Obama’s campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him wearing traditional Somali clothing is divisive, they should be ashamed.