Bitch puh-leese! Don’t act like you don’t know what is offensive about this. It is not the picture itself, it is the intent behind the distribution of the picture. It is the fact that Obama has been the victim of a disgusting, Islamophobic, xenophobic smear campaign and this ties right into what the crazies want to believe. I bet they’re gleefully including this pic in the latest round of their smear emails now.

I am simply…astounded at the dirtiness of the Clinton campaign. Not being an American or even living there, I used to wonder about the vitriol aimed at the Clintons and wondered why people seemed to be so rabidly against them. Really I had dismissed it as right-wing hating.

But these kind of tactics…against their OWN. It’s unbelievably nasty. No wonder…

This two-year old photo of Obama is in the public domain, just like the costume photos of Hillary, Bush, and others. Nothing new here.

Drudge has no honor or allegiance with Democrats. He wouldn’t hesitate turning-out any Democrat foolish enough to “leak” information to him “anonymously.”

In a conference call today, Howard Wolfson of the Clinton campaign responded with an unequivocal “No” when asked for a clear denial. (Of course, it’s not like Wolfson is going to fess-up to it either, but I give the benefit of doubt to a Democrat over Drudge’s word.)

Right now Barack is less than 20,000 donors away from reaching his goal of ONE MILLION individual donors. Please, call your friends, your cousins, hell, your mailman and your beautician — everyone you know, and tell them to help Barack reach 1 million donors and help squash this sh#t once and for all.

Is there a persistent, stealth email smear campaign against Hillary Clinton that constantly accuses her of being a “secret Muslim” or of “hating America” because she “refuses to salute the flag” or accuses her parents of being communists?

I didn’t think so.

Contrary to popular belief, Obama didn’t sneak over to Kenya to visit an al qaeda training camp.

He took his wife, daughters, family members, and a couple hundred reporters to Kenya a couple of years ago. The picture has ALWAYS been around. The Clinton camp just dug it up to reignite the Muslim-phobia and racism our country has.

I know–I know–why would the Clinton campaign do such a thing? I’ll give it to you in four words to keep it simple:
because they are LOSING!

I am four square for Obama. I will not support Hillary unless there is hell or highwater but Matt Drudge is a bottom-feeding scumbag of the first order. You can’t believe anything he writes about anybody to the left of Dick Cheney.

PTCruiser

“Enough. If Barack Obama’s campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him wearing traditional Somali clothing is divisive, they should be ashamed,” Clinton’s campaign manager Maggie Williams said in a statement…..”Hillary Clinton has worn the traditional clothing of countries she has visited and had those photos published widely,” Williams said. “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. We will not be distracted.”

I hope there’s a lot more to that statement, because the very first thing out of Maggie’s mouth should have been abotu how the Clintons and their campaign had nothing to do with it, and that the Clintons would stand with the Obamas in condemning the attempt to paint Obama and all muslims as terrorists by association.

Fafnir, don’t shoot the messenger on this one.

Your girl Hillary screwed up, and true to form she’s going to blame it on Maggie and the ‘lowly’ staffers who sent this out trying to help her. Hillary hasn’t taken responsibility for anything this campaign. I guess it takes a ‘clairvoyent’, to borrow a phrase from Chelsea, to see that this kind of thing is a bad idea.

The person who sent this out is trying to take advantage of anti-muslim sentiment in America — the fact that Williams is making a ‘nondenial/nonapology’ is suspect to me, fafnir. Where there’s smoke, or in the Clintons’ case, several plumes of smoke, there might be a forest fire. It’s simply disingenuous to make the claims Maggie does in Anonymous’ link, because then one would have to forget the fervor the Clintons were willing to take advantage of back in February 2006 with the Dubai port security scandal. The Clintons know there’s anti-muslim sentiment in the U.S. but instead of truly mending bridges, they pull this stuff.

Notice how the Clinton camp turns this issue back on the victim. It’s never the Clintons’ fault; the Clintons’ are always the victim, even when they’re the perpetrator. The last time I saw anything like that, it was a foreign con artist blocked from buying items with a stolen credit card accusing the company who wasn’t going to get burned again of running the scam instead.

If the Clinton campaign in any way shape or form wasn’t behind it, then they needed to issue a deeper statement than Maggie’s. The fact that they have not is suspect in two ways, one for if they approved it and one for if they didn’t know but they don’t mind that it happened.

If the news is not reporting that deper statement, the news should be condemned.

If it was yet another Clinton staffer (and the word so far is that it was) doing this, we really shouldn’t be protecting the Clintons from the consequences of their actions, Fafnir. At some point, the Clintons are going to have to take responsibility for those things done in their name by the people they pay. Will they? or will it be like the Iraq War Resolution vote?

How in the world would someone in Clinton camp get these pictures?

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5irIOs_yU1RYYk9fhK4_Bw9RGGGBw

You won’t even be able to post ‘nice’ subjects because the Troll Rating Police have marked you for death, apparently. You could write about pooties (which I think is stupid over there and a waste of space, but to each their own) and you’re very own Troll Rating Police will mark you as a troll… at the same time as marking up a favored person.

You have to nip this in the bud now by documenting who is troll rating you, when they are troll rating you, and talk to the admins — NOW. I’m serious. If the administrators won’t help you, you might wanna lay low and just write in other people’s blogs, write to your own blog, email people, and just give out recommends until the Election is over.

Or set up multiple handles.

I got banned from Daily Kos in December. I can read, but I can never contribute again. What happens is that if you get a certain number of hidden comments, then you’re autobanned and the only way to fix the autoban is to talk to the administrators. It’s a pain in the ass, and there’s no guarantee that you will be reinstated. I didn’t attempt to do so. I remember Universal (who is a big Clinton supporter) going ballistic because he was being followed around and having his comments troll rated. So he took notes and always contacted the admins when someone unfairly troll rated him — EVERY TIME. I applauded him, when I was able to post on there. Censorship is not partisan. Abuse of power is not a partisan issue either.

The problem is that such tactics — trollrating comments after the fact regardless of whether the comments are ‘legitimate’ or not — are condoned by Markos and is written in the faq as a legitimate way of removing ‘trolls’. I know what the intent was; but I also believe that that intent is subverted. Unfortunately for many people ‘troll’ means ‘i don’t agree with you’. That’s the human condition. So, it’s up to you how you’re gonna handle this. Again, I’d take it up with the administrators before you get autobanned.

Billary has become embolden by the lack of protest for Bill O’Riey’s call to lynch Michelle. She is not even bothering to deny that her campaign released the photo of Sen. Obama or fire the staff person who released it. Bill O’riley needs to be suspended even yet. We can still make it happen.

Like JB said, “I don’t know karate, but I know kuh-razy”.

On the positive side, how great is it that this is the best her opposition research has been able to come up with? Weak sauce, Hillary.

The Clintonistas at Dailykos are on a campaign to get me banned there. They’re troll rating random comments of mine for no apparent reason–heck 16 of them troll rated a tip jar in a thread about Chelsea’s ignorant comment about war opponents which made it to the recommended list over there. They took to troll rating all my comments in my latest diary. It’s starting to get really annoying.

The Clintons approve right up until the fire catches up with them, and then they disavow. If this had only been one incident, it’s forgiveable. But there have been way too many incidents. The incidents form a pattern. It’s always someone else’s fault, and it’s just coincidental that they happen to profit from it. It’s always someone else’s fault.

The buck doesn’t stop with them, but they’ll gladly take your bucks. By the way, I’ve seen you at Daily Kos. You appear to make a lot of Clintonistas angry. If they confronted you with facts instead of ‘delete your thread! delete it now!’ it’d be different.. but it’s not. Keep on keeping on, man.

don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. or maybe this blog was already on your ’shitty roll’ and you just needed a reason to apply for a decision you had already made (a la certain gays and the mcclurkin issue).

the photo is real. the reasons why the photo was distributed are suspect. the reactions to that photo are real. i hope this link shows up, of Rick Moran’s point of view about some conservatives’ giddyness of this photo this weekend.

http://rightwingnuthouse.com/archives/2008/02/24/enough-with-all-of-this-obama-is-a-mooslim-crap/

No good can come from using a whole race of people or a religion to win.