Taking a page right out of the Orval Faubus playbook, as-yet unnamed Hillary Clinton presidential campaign staffers resorted to a cheap political trick in a transparently desperate attempt to discredit Sen. Barack Obama, her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Faubus, a six-term Democratic governor of Arkansas, is best known for blocking desegregation of Little Rock public schools in defiance of a U.S. Supreme Court order. He was a master at covertly inflaming racial tensions for political gain. But e-mailing around a 2006 photo of Obama wearing a Somali costume says a lot more about the Clinton campaign than about her opponent.
By circulating the photo of Obama in a white tunic and turban, the Clinton campaigners clearly hoped to encourage whispers about the Illinois senator’s religion, race and patriotism before Democratic primaries in Texas and Ohio. After losing 11 straight primaries since Super Tuesday, Texas and Ohio are must-win contests for Clinton. Significantly, neither Maggie Williams nor Howard Wolfson, the two most senior Clinton campaign officials, seemed in a hurry to identify any staffers who might have been responsible for the offending email. Wolfson denied that circulating the photo had been approved by the Clinton campaign.
Obama no more chose his African Muslim father than Clinton chose to grow up in a white Chicago suburb. Donning tribal garb to please his Somali hostsproved only that he was a polite guest. Peddling this photo a week before the March 4 primaries exposes the panic in the Clinton camp. Unfortunately, this is but the latest in a series of ignominious campaign cheap shots by or on behalf of the woman who only a few months ago was seen as the inevitable Democratic nominee but whose campaign now has the stench of inescapable defeat.
Despite the media’s near-canonization of the Democratic front-runner, Obama is not above criticism for his most-liberal-in-the-Senate voting record, his lack of significant executive and legislative experience, his positions on issues from foreign policy to universal health care, or even his Christian pastor’s ties to black separatist Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. But his heredity has nothing to do with fitness for higher office and should not be a campaign issue.
