Kenya Photo Worth Several Sharp Words From Clinton, Obama Camps
The Drudge Report ran this photo of Barack Obama in Somali garb from a 2006 trip to Africa. The Web site claims Hillary Clinton's campaign provided the photo to it.
A two-year-old picture of Barack Obama dressed in traditional Somali garb has sparked a new war of words between the Democratic presidential front-runner and rival Hillary Clinton, whose aides say they can’t confirm or deny whether her camp is the source of the photo.
The photograph shows the Illinois senator outfitted as a Somali elder during his 2006 visit to northeastern Kenya, part of a five-country tour of Africa. It appeared at the top of Monday’s Drudge Report, and was said to have been provided by Clinton staffers over the weekend.
Now both campaigns are suggesting that the other should feel some sort of shame over the flap. According to Obama aides, the Clinton campaign is sinking to “shameful fear-mongering.” Clinton’s campaign chief retorted that she can’t figure out why Obama would be “ashamed” of having the photo out in the public.
While the source of the photo is unverified, Drudge claims it was sent to the site by a Clinton aide, who argued that had it been a costumed Clinton, it would have made the front pages.
“Wouldn’t we be seeing this on the cover of every magazine if it were HRC,” shorthand for the candidate, Hillary Rodham Clinton, wrote the unnamed Clinton campaign staffer, according to the Drudge Report.
Expressing outrage, Obama’s campaign suggested the purpose of the photo release was to invoke reminders of persistent rumors that Obama is secretly Muslim, and by extension, anti-American.
“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,” Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said.
“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,” Plouffe continued.
A longtime member of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, Obama, who as a child lived for four years in Indonesia, has repeatedly denied that he is Muslim. Previous attacks have been decried by both candidates, and one Clinton campaign volunteer was asked to step down after forwarding an e-mail spreading the Muslim rumor.
But seeing an opportunity to refute the Obama camp’s outrage, Clinton campaign Manager Maggie Williams turned the perceived prejudice on its head.”If Barack Obama’s campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him wearing traditional Somali clothing is divisive, they should be ashamed. Hillary Clinton has worn the traditional clothing of countries she has visited and had those photos published widely,” Clinton campaign manager Maggie Williams said in a statement.
“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,” she said.
Indeed, the New York senator, her husband, Bill Clinton, and other past presidents have all been photographed in traditional costume while visiting nations abroad.
President Bush and Russian President Vladimir
Putin wore traditional Vietnamese “ao dai” robes
during the 2006 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation
summit in Hanoi, Vietnam. (AP Photo)
Speaking on a conference call, Obama advisers rejected the suggestion that the candidate is shamed by the photo, but likened the incident to receipt of an unwanted Christmas present.
General Scott Gration, who was along on the trip to Africa, said Obama was given the outfit and encouraged to try it on during a visit with Somalis, Gabras and other ethnic groups.
“We all have pictures of us in hats and accepting other gifts. As was pointed out to me earlier, we try on Christmas gifts, sometimes that we may not want to keep, but we try them on as being a grateful recipient. Senator Obama did what any leader should do: accepted the gift, accepted the hospitality, accepted that token of friendship and he did it in a way that showed respect and helped build the bridges that he does so well,” Gration said.
“He’s a unifier in all atmospheres and certainly that day he was somebody who accepted a gift of friendship in a way that we would expect our president to do,” he continued.
Meanwhile, a senior Clinton staff member could not rule out the source of the photo, but suggested that had it been Clinton dressed in such gear, it would’ve been splashed across newspapers around the country.”There are 700 people in our organization. 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 gets treated differently by the media, well they’re right,” the senior staffer said.
GOPAC head and FOX News contributor Michael Steele said he’d be surprised to find out the photo came from the Clinton campaign.”If there is a staffer who sort of in their own roguish way had gone out and put this out there, this will be their last day on the job,” Steele said.
“I think this is something that just kind of popped up on the ‘Net and they are attributing it to her. I’d be hard-pressed to find someone on the staff who is wasting their time in the heat of this battle to do something like that.”
In my opinion, this picture thing is just ridiculous - EVERY politician has worn the garb of the country they are visiting. The “plagerism” thing was just as ridiculous - EVERY politician picks up certain sayings or phrases from time to time that have been said before. And then his NAME, come on people - yes is Rhymes with Osama, yes his middle name is the same as Saddam’s last name - come on, so I guess McCain uses cocaine right?? I mean REALLY - what is going on??
There are so many other things they could be focusing on with Obama and I don’t understand why they are not - I guess they are leaving that up to the Republicans once the Democratic nomination is made.
I am way more bothered by his Church’s mission statement - which he has been a member of for a long time. Here is the website. http://www.tucc.org/about.htm Do your research-this has been confirmed to be his church. Just imagine if a white politician belonged to a church that said these same things, except just replace the word black with the word white - I would be the first one picketing in front of the white house if they had someone like that running for President today. And I would absolutely think he is a dangerous White Supremeist - So how am I supposed to feel when Obama’s church says those things??
Or Obama’s OWN WORDS of his Spiritual Journey and his Mother’s influence and teachings. Here is a piece of that article found on page 4 of the article:
(4 of 11)
“For my mother, organized religion too often dressed up closed-mindedness in the garb of piety, cruelty and oppression in the cloak of righteousness. This isn’t to say that she provided me with no religious instruction. In her mind, a working knowledge of the world’s great religions was a necessary part of any well-rounded education. In our household the Bible, the Koran, and the Bhagavad Gita sat on the shelf alongside books of Greek and Norse and African mythology. On Easter or Christmas Day my mother might drag me to church, just as she dragged me to the Buddhist temple, the Chinese New Year celebration, the Shinto shrine, and ancient Hawaiian burial sites.” You can find the full article here:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1546579-1,00.html There are other issues he talks about here too like abortion etc.
I don’t know, there are several things in this article that I have to say I agree with, they make sense and are enlightening and intelligent. But at the same time, I feel we as a society are losing our religion and morals quickly and it is evident when you look at the behavior and attitudes of our society.
We DO need something to stand for and believe in again - but I’m just not so sure if a President that our young Hip Hop and American Idol generation are so readily jumping on board with, many not knowing hardly anything about him, is the answer.
So I don’t know, his church coupled with some of his background and his seemingly conscious actions of not showing respect for the National Anthem (and TRUST me, he knows better-I think this was a deliberate statement, just like the flag pin thing), his wife’s comments about her pride in America and her Harvard thesis about her relationship with whites, his church’s affiliation with Farrakhan who just came out and endorsed him (although I am sure this was against Obama’s wishes because he knows that WON’T help him). These things are way more important than him doing what all other politicians do by wearing the traditional garb or by a phrase he uses that a friend of his said first or his name!
His idea of wanting to sit down with terrorists and talk to them - he is a good speaker, but somehow I don’t think he will be able to talk the Extreme Islamic’s out of thinking that we are the infidels. They don’t think we are the infidels just because of our foreign policies - they do not like our WESTERN ways of life because THEY ARE COMPLETELY DRIVEN BY THEIR EXTREME ISLAMIC RELIGION AND BELIEFS - that is their law, their constitution and what they are very willing to die for. I don’t think you can “change their mind” on that.
Anyway - we will see. I am looking forward to the debate tonight. I am still undecided on who I will vote for. I want to get excited about Obama-I really do, I want to feel comfortable backing him and I want a fresh new change in Washington too - but some of the above things really bother me. Everyone keeps trying to make those concerns racist and I disagree - if Colin Powell were running - there would be NO QUESTION about him and his background!! His background speaks for itself.
OK folks, how about a little reality check. The photo was taken by an AP photographer, and has been posted on the website below since 2006. It wasn’t “leaked”, “revealed” or “outed”. And since it clearly identifies Obama as a US official, it’s a matter of public record as well.
http://www.geeskaafrika.com/ethiopia_31aug06.htm
Diana:
Your reading comprehension skills appear to rival your talent for wordplay. I said that the people who type in all caps and hurl admonitions about “wake up, america”, (usually followed by several exclamation points) are too stupid to respire and vote.
Also people who use the word “muslin” and “mooseslims”, etc.
I’m expanding that observation to include anyone who uses or believes in the word or concept of “antichrist”, believes that the Obama campaign is a terrorist sleeper cell, that there is a hidden significance to his name being one letter off from “Osama’ or that his middle name is Hussein, or that Bill and Hillary Clinton had numerous people killed.
At any rate, thanks for keeping the Cletus (the slack-jawed yokel) factor high on here. The only thing lacking at this point is someone’s rambling diatribe about how it’s all tied to the Freemasons or Bohemian Grove or Skull and Bones, etc.
It’s all here, the panoply of right (and some left) wing weirdness, including the incorrect assertion that this country was founded on Christian principles (along with the suggestion that there be some sort of religious test to hold the office of president…hello? Article VI, Section 3. anyone remember that? ), and that the constitution erected a wall of separation between church and state.
Finally, I have money that says you have no faint clue who Thomas Paine was.
Wonderful stuff. You can’t buy entertainment like this, but it’s free on the internet.
To Thomas “Paine in the Butt”:
People who oppose BHO are “Too stupid to respire”? How stupid is that comment?
Past people who have gained power through hypnosis eventually cause trouble, for others or for themselves. I agree with others who say, America beware. Barack Hussein Obama’s charisma has suspicious origins.
Here’s the trouble with Obama’s hypnotic technique. Some, such as Hitler and Osama, use their charms to get people to do bad things. Others whip people up for good ends, but still that hysteria can lead to assassinations. Politicians need to be real–and OBAMA ISN’T REAL. Even Michelle Obama said, don’t turn Barack into a deity, because deities are eventually knocked down. (That’s what happened to MLK, Malcolm X, and others.) We do not know Obama yet, and I’m afraid that it will not be pretty when we find out…
No one worships Hillary–but those who support her know that she can get the job done. This is not a beauty pageant. It’s not reality tv. It actually is reality, and it’s the future generations who we are gambling with if we vote without using our minds. A vote for Hillary is a vote for your own well-being, and that of your children, and children’s children.
This is all a puppet show for the candidates that the media has “cast in the play”. The media and the people behind it are controlling everything and have been controlling the presidency for many years. Its all hype. When Clinton was being attacked about the Monica Lewinsky issue everyone was up in arms about it but that was the smoke screen. The real issue that was never discussed was “China-gate” and Clinton selling nuclear weapon secrets to the Chinese and them funding him and his campaign for president…. but that was never mentioned on the main media. The American people are sheep and I pray that they wake up before we allow ourselves to become a socialistic state (Clinton or Obama) or a fascist police state through McCain. We have all been taught in public schools that they are on opposite sides of the political spectrum but they are not and both are the equivalent of total government and total loss of individual freedom. WAKE UP AMERICA!!!!!!!
As a devout Muslim living in the heart of the United States I see no reason why Sen. Obama’s religions preference or common human respect and/or tolerance of any other culture should be of any concern to this country. The garb this man is wearing has nothing to do with the Muslim faith to begin with, its traditional clothing. As it says in the First Amendment:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.
And if someone on this post decides to attack me by saying that “Islam is a terrorist religion” my only comment to that would be that ignorance is bliss.
people beware!!!!!!!! Obama is a terroist, NO DOUBT, once a Muslim always a muslim. Allowed in the White House we will all be wearing these turbies. People plese wake up , this guy is very dangerous. Groomed to perfection that is why everyone is drawn to him. BEWARE!!!!!!!!!!!!
Any ignorant person on here who believes the garb Obama was photographed in was Islamic should read the more real news:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7265115.stm
I’m not an Obama supporter, but I do care about the sources of my information.