There is something distasteful in the reaction from Barack Obama’s rivals to the publication of a 2006 photograph of his wearing traditional Somali dress. Many US politicians, including some presidents have been photographed wearing national costumes of countries they visited. These are often gifts from their hosts and the less self-conscious visitors have happily put them on for the photographers. The only obvious difference in this case is that Obama is black.
The Hillary campaign has denied they found and leaked the photograph — as well they might, because everyone seems to be assuming that this is a racist slur against the Democrat presidential hopeful. But this view in itself is outrageous. Obama’s father was born in Kenya, which borders Somalia. He was in Kenya when offered the chance to wear traditional Somali clothes. So what? Would an American politician of German extraction be damaged by donning Lederhosen, a Jaeger jacket and Tyrolean hat? Would an American congressman whose forebears came from Japan be persecuted for being photographed in traditional Japanese dress? Of course not.
Yet oddly the Obama campaign team has been described by its traveling press corps as “being relaxed” about the photographs. Surely the better response would have been to ask why on earth their candidate should NOT have been photographed in any national costume he chose to put on? This whole sorry episode leaves a bad taste in the mouth, which actually does not reflect well on anybody, including Obama himself, for letting the matter pass.
But perhaps he knows he has bigger concerns ahead. The Hillary campaign originally thought it was so far in front, it could merely swat Obama. But now it is on the back foot and the mudslinging has begun. Storm clouds may be gathering over money loaned to an Obama aide, Tony Rezko, a property developer and pizza-chain owner by a wealthy UK-based Iraqi, Nadhmi Auchi. The suggestion is that part of a $3.5 million loan in 2005 was used by Rezko’s wife to buy a plot of land beside the mock-Georgian Chicago mansion that Obama bought three weeks later for $1.65 million. Obama later bought a strip of Mrs. Rezko’s land in a deal that the candidate has since described as “boneheaded”.
Hillary’s aides are hinting that Obama used part of Auchi’s loan to Rezko to buy his own property. Given that Rezko is due to stand trial in Chicago on March 3 on unrelated corruption charges, the Obama campaign seems to have a problem. At the very least Hillary spin-doctors will doubtless finesse any Arab connection Obama might perhaps have to alarm US Zionists who traditionally vote the Democrat ticket. Hillary Clinton and her husband Bill know all about sleaze accusations since they were themselves implicated in fraud allegations over the Whitewater property deal in Arkansas which broke during Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign. Ironically, the bad news for the Hillary camp now is that Bill Clinton still went on to win.
