Clinton Tries The Low Road

The Clinton campaign is starting to smell of desperation. For the first few months of her campaign, Clinton was content to conduct her campaign on the issues. But now that she is behind, it looks like she's willing to take her campaign into the gutter, and try to smear her opponent rather than debate ideas or policies.

The Clinton campaign released the above picture of Barack Obama. The picture shows Obama in traditional Somali dress during a trip to the country. But the obvious intent of the picture being released without an accompanying explanation is an attempt to try and paint him as a Muslim. This smells almost as bad as the vicious "Muslim" memo that has been propagated by the right-wing.

Obama is no more a Muslim than I am a Bush Republican (and I assure you, nothing could be farther from the truth than that). This attempt to smear Obama by inferring he is Muslim, is simply an exercise in "gutter politics".

Sadly, that's not the only smear the Clinton campaign has tried to float about Obama in the last few days. Prior to the Somali picture, they tried to paint Obama as a friend of terrorists by linking him to two people who many years ago were tied to the Weather Underground.

It didn't seem to matter to the Clinton people that one of the people was never convicted of any crime, and the other paid her debt to society long ago. Both are currently respected college professors and law-abiding citizens.

Now Clinton is accusing Obama of unfairly attacking her policies. But he hasn't sent anyone a picture of her in a "burka" or tried to tie her to "terrorists". He has just pointed out some of her well-documented economic policies.

I can see why she would not want these pointed out, because they probably won't play well in a union state like Ohio. But like it or not, Clinton is on record as being proud of her husband's passage of NAFTA. She is on record as having supported and defended corporate outsourcing of jobs. And she has received millions of corporate dollars for her campaign.

Clinton may want to flip-flop on these issues now that the campaign has reached Ohio, but it is perfectly legitimate for Obama to point out her previous positions.