Here's the response from Maggie William, Clinton's campaign manager:
Enough.
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.
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.
Note that there is no denial that the campaign was spreading this photograph. Instead there is a weak defense of the smear, arguing that there was nothing wrong about sending out the photo.
It reminds me of the people who call Obama "Barack Hussein Obama" and then act all innoncent when they get called on it. "It's just his name. Why are you Obama supporters ashamed of his name?" The photo is simply a continuation of the attempts to smear Obama with the Muslim label. First came the emails (which were also spread by campaign staffers), then the comments about him going to a madrassa, and now this.
The defense on this board appears to be that the photo is an old one, having appeared in the National Enquirer. Somehow that's supposed to absolve the Clinton campaign any blame for trying to spread this picture to a larger and more mainstream audience. At least this defense isn't offensive like the one from the Clinton campaign.