I would love to support Obama when he attacks those who try to swiftboat him. [View All]

[Tom Rinaldo]

The problem is I never see him do it unless he can find a way to tie that into some attack on Hillary. Right now I am witnessing an orchestrated swiftboating of Hillary Clinton unfolding and Obama's official campaign is up to their necks in pushing it.

It is almost like they have an unspoken policy to accuse her of what they themselves promote. The fake outrage over the "Obama Dressed" photo is the perfect example of that to me. "Fake outrage" is a charge that Obama supporters tag on Hillary all of the time. Most recently when she got angry over Obama campaign literature that has in some cases been out there for weeks.

Well now comes the Obama "outrage" over the distribution of photos of Obama in traditional African garb - against the Clinton campaign. What is known is that Drudge "obtained" a copy of an internal and private email shared between some Clinton staffers (no claim was made that it was widely shared). Even Drudge had the journalistic integrity to not state that the email was distributed to him intentionally - and lord knows he could have gotten more mileage with such a claim. Many embarrassing documents and memos are "obtained" from political campaigns in mysterious ways that those campaigns would never have wanted let see the light of day. I would not call this instance "distributing" a photo that could be used against Obama.

So what exactly was that email? Was it a template for distribution to the public in an underhanded way? Did it consist of language that can be used to dupe the public into believing Obama had ties to Al Qaeda? Did it say "Proof that Obama is a Muslim"? No, none of that. It was more on the order of "Hoo Boy, the Republicans will get some mileage out of this one if Obama gets the nomination. And that happens to be true. Were it false there would be no outrage being expressed over distribution of that photo now.

Is this a photo that is now coming to light for the first time because Drudge "obtained" an email between some Clinton staffers (left undefined is how senior or lowly those staffers might be)? No it is not. In fact this is a photo that was screaming from a paper over two weeks ago. Not only was this photo published and widely DISTRIBUTED, but it was accompanied by a full page story with a headline that read: "Obama's Al Qaeda Link".

When that story with that photo was published, what did the Obama campaign have to say about it? How much outrage did they express then? Who did they blast? Who did they accuse? Who did they even bother TO CORRECT? No one. They couldn't find a way to use it against Hilary. But now that Drudge has given them an opportunity to do so on a silver platter, they seize it eagerly. The act outraged that anyone could think of distributing that photo KNOWING FILL WELL that by blowing this up into a prominent campaign issue that photo will now be seen by tens of millions of voters who had no clue that it existed. The Obama camp has willing joined the marketing campaign for distribution of that photo, making sure that it jumps off the sordid pages of the Drudge Report and into the main stream media.

If they really cared about that photo being seen they would have objected the first time when millions saw it actually being used as part of a hate campaign against Obama. They don't care if millions more see it now, if by so doing Obama can win tens of thousands of additional Democratic Primary Votes next week from people who they can turn against Hillary Clinton by blaming her for an electoral challenge - smears based on his name, his heritage etc. that he knows full well he will need to face himself if he hopes to be elected President in November.

It is ugly politics, just about as ugly as it gets, but the swiftboating taking place now is ugly politics being played BY Barack Obama.