Blue Crab Boulevard

I have not bothered to comment on that picture of Barack Obama wearing the garb of a Somali elder that was circulated over the weekend. I'm glad I didn't since Drudge is now reporting that the picture was circulated by Clinton staffers in what appears to be a really nasty - and completely ineffective - smear attempt.

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.

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe on the circulation of the Obama/Somali photo: "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. This is part of a disturbing pattern that led her county chairs to resign in Iowa, her campaign chairman to resign in New Hampshire, and it's exactly the kind of divisive politics that turns away Americans of all parties and diminishes respect for America in the world." 

Politicians have a long history of dressing up in local garb for a photo opportunity. Obama is no different. But the sheer sleaze factor of where this picture appears to have come from should make people wonder. How much of the vast conspiracy that Hillary Clinton complains about traces back to her own operatives?

Incidentally, I agree with Rick Moran's take on the whole picture incident.

I receive these kinds of comments all the time and read them constantly on other blogs. What the commenter and other conservatives don’t take into account about Obama is that he is much more of a calculating man than anyone generally gives him credit for. He attends a church in Chicago whose pastor is admiring of black racist Louis Farrakahn. But I doubt whether Obama’s Christianity goes much deeper than his devotion to Islam – which is to say his religiosity is a calculated element of his political personae. His attendance at Trinity United Church Of Christ in Chicago establishes his authenticity as an African American more than fulfilling any spiritual need the candidate may have.

And that’s why I find charges that Obama is some kind of closet Muslim so absurd. The candidate may have been trained as a grass roots organizer using the playbook written by radical Saul Alinsky. And he may have been involved in radical lefist politics early in his career. But a man who has so carefully crafted a political resume by conveniently being absent for key votes or voting “Present” on controversial bills – all the better to obscure how far left his politics go or what his true politics are – it is not beyond imagining that whatever his religious beliefs, they are calculated to effortlessly merge with the rest of this image Obama is presenting to the world. There is no room for Islam in this image nor is there anything in the public record that would indicate Obama has even given his Muslim heritage – if indeed his father was a member of the Islamic faith – a second thought as an adult.

Obama is nothing more than a gifted politician. In other words, he is a stone opportunist with a carefully-crafted, beautifully-engineered image. Nothing more. 

Is this the final backfire of the Clinton campaign? At this point, all one can do is hope. 

UPDATE: Commenter Neo sent this along in comments. Erm, Bubba looks even more ridiculous in that getup.