So yesterday Obama accused the Clinton camp of circulating the African garb photo

Clinton, who has worn native dress herself, like during a trip to Jordan in 1999, responded through a campaign manager Maggie Williams.

"If Barack Obama's campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him wearing Somali dress is divisive, they should be ashamed," Williams said.

Team Clinton never actually admitted they had anything to do with the photo but …

"No, no … it's unlikely that it came up by accident," political expert David Birdsell said.

And it could end up backfiring on Hillary.

"Once again Sen. Obama is echoing Republican talking points, this time from Bob Novak," he said in an e-mailed statement.

"This is how Republicans work. A Republican-leaning journalist runs a blind item designed to set Democrats against one another.

Experienced Democrats see this for what it is.

Others get distracted and thrown off their games. Voters should be concerned about the readiness of any Democrat inexperienced enough to fall for this.

There is only one campaign in this race that has actually engaged in the very practice that Sen. Obama is decrying, and it's his.

We have no idea what Mr. Novak's item is about and reject it totally. Instead of pointing fingers at us, Sen. Obama should get back to the issues and focus on what this election is really about." http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1107/6949.html

The Drudge Report warms to the Clinton camp, or is it vice versa?
By Jim Rutenberg
Published: October 22, 2007
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/22/america/drudge.1-156891.php?page=1

WASHINGTON: As Senator Barack Obama prepared to give a major speech on Iraq one morning a few weeks ago, a flashing-red siren alert went up on the Drudge Report Web site. It read, "Queen of the Quarter: Hillary Crushes Obama in Surprise Fund-Raising Surge," and, "$27 Million, Sources Tell Drudge Report."

Within minutes, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's fund-raising success was injected via Drudge into the day's political news on the Internet and cable television. It did not halt coverage of Obama's speech or his criticism of her vote to authorize the war in 2002, but along the front lines of the campaign - the hourly, intensely fought effort to capture the news cycle or deny ownership of it to the other side - it was a telling assault.

Clinton's aides declined to discuss how the Drudge Report got access to her latest fund-raising figures nearly 20 minutes before the official announcement went to supporters. But it was a prime example of a development that has surprised much of the political world: Clinton is learning to play nice with the Drudge Report and the powerful, elusive and conservative-leaning man behind it.
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Clinton's communications team, led by Howard Wolfson, is not leaving Drudge to the Republicans. Five current and former Democratic officials said Clinton has on her side the closest thing her party has ever had to Rhoades in Tracy Sefl, a former Democratic National Committee official. The officials said that Sefl had established a friendly relationship with Drudge and that Clinton's campaign often worked quietly through her to open a line of communication with Drudge.
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Though liberals say Drudge's ideological imbalance remains plain, Republicans, who viewed the site as theirs in campaigns past, say they are noticing what they believe to be more Democratic driven, often Clinton driven, items on it.

And, as New York magazine reported recently, it has escaped no one that Drudge has sometimes mentioned Clinton favorably on his syndicated radio program, even if no one really knows whether his comments reflect admiration for her or simply a recognition that keeping her in the news is good for his business.
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Former Republican Party and Bush campaign officials said that in 2004 they considered Drudge's site so central in their efforts to undermine Senator John Kerry's presidential campaign that they systemized their approach to him. Senior aides in the Bush war room, run by Steve Schmidt, a veteran Republican communications aide, insisted on vetting any information to be fed to Drudge so as not to annoy and overwhelm him with items he might find unworthy. And, these officials said, when the approval was given, the main point of contact was usually the Bush aide who then had the closest relationship with Drudge, J. Timothy Griffin, currently a consultant to the campaign of Fred Thompson, the former Republican senator from Tennessee.

Through that system, Bush's aides funneled embarrassing tidbits about Kerry in which mainstream news reporters had initially shown less interest. From time to time, those former aides said, an item's appearance on Drudge would drive it into mainstream news coverage: A video clip of Kerry contradicting himself, or a photograph of him wearing a protective germ outfit.

Bill Clinton Asks for a Second Chance
By Liz Halloran
Posted February 11, 2008

The morning after his wife, Hillary, was routed in three state contests by Sen. Barack Obama in their dead-heat battle for the Democratic nomination, former President Bill Clinton made his case for her before a packed Sunday service at one of the largest black churches in Washington, D.C.
But first he offered an apology of sorts for racially tinged comments he made about Obama and his candidacy that have triggered a backlash in the black community and among many other Democrats.

Clinton invoked his "worship of a God of second chances" in pronouncing himself glad to be at the Temple of Praise, which claims nearly 15,000 members. His invocation of second chances echoed comments he made early last week at black churches in California, where he campaigned for his wife before that state's Super Tuesday primary, which she won.
http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/campaign-2008/2008/02/11/bill-clinton-asks-for-a-second-chance.html

Bill Clinton To Apologize At LA Black Churches
Once again, Bill Clinton is ready to repent.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/02/bill-clinton-to-apologize_n_84573.html
On Sunday the former president is scheduled to visit black churches in South Central Los Angeles, where he's expected to offer a mea culpa to those who "dearly loved him" when he was their president, Rep. Diane Watson (D-Calif.) says.
Watson, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus who has endorsed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), tells us she'll usher the former president to more than half a dozen churches in her district where she says he needs to "renew his relationship" with congregants who were turned off by his racially tinged
comments in the days leading up to and following the South Carolina primary. (Such as when Clinton compared Sen. Barack Obama's landslide victory to Jesse Jackson's wins in 1984 and 1988.)

http://graphics.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/politics/20080112_nevada_lawsuit.pdf
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/17/a-feisty-bill-clinton-defends-nevada-lawsuit/
CLINTON ALLIES SUPPRESS THE VOTE IN NEVADA...
On Meet the Press on Sunday, Hillary Clinton said her campaign had nothing to do with a lawsuit--written about by Nation Editor Katrina vanden Heuvel--that threatens to prevent thousands of workers from voting in the Nevada caucus on Saturday.
Back in March, the Nevada Democratic Party agreed to set up caucus locations on the Vegas strip for low-income shift workers, many of them members of the state's influential Culinary Union, who commute long distances to work and wouldn't be able to get home in time to caucus. It was an uncontroversial idea until the Culinary Union endorsed Barack Obama and the Nevada State Education Association, whose top officials support Clinton, sued to shut down the caucus sites.
The Clinton camp played dumb until yesterday, when President Clinton came out in favor of the lawsuit.
Clinton's comments drew a heated response from D. Taylor, the head of Nevada's Culinary Union, on MSNBC's Hardball. "He is in support of disenfranchising thousands upon thousands of workers, not even just our members," Taylor said of Clinton. "The teachers union is just being used here. We understand that This is the Clinton campaign. They tried to disenfranchise students in Iowa. Now they're trying to
disenfranchise people here in Nevada, who are union members and people of color and women."
Rank-and-file members of Nevada's teachers union also come out against the lawsuit filed by their leadership. "We never thought our union and Senator Clinton would put politics ahead of what's right for our students, but that's exactly what they're doing," the letter stated. "As teachers, and proud Democrats, we hope they will drop this undemocratic lawsuit and help all Nevadans caucus, no matter which candidate they support."
The lawsuit's opponents make a persuasive point. Creating obstacles to voting is what the GOP does to Democrats, not what Democrats should be doing to other Democrats.

Clinton adviser steps down after drug use comments
Earlier Thursday, Clinton personally apologized to rival Obama for Shaheen's remarks.
Obama accepted her apology, according to David Axelrod, the top political strategist for the Obama campaign.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/12/13/clinton.obama/index.html

January 6, 2008, 5:18 pm
Edwards: No Conscience in Clinton Campaign
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/edwards-no-conscience-in-clinton-campaign/
By Julie Bosman
KEENE, N.H. – John Edwards angrily took on Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton at two news conferences in a row on Sunday, saying that her campaign “doesn’t seem to have a conscience.”

COMPTON, Calif. (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton and her campaign tried to mend ties to black voters Thursday when a key supporter apologized to her chief rival, Barack Obama, for comments that hinted at Obama's drug use as a teenager. The candidate herself, meanwhile, praised the Rev. Martin Luther King and promised to assist with the rebirth of this troubled, largely black city.

Bob Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television, apologized for comments he made at a Clinton campaign rally in South Carolina on Sunday that hinted at Obama's use of drugs as a teenager.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-01-17-johnson-apology_N.htm?csp=34

Clinton Surrogate Compares Obama Ad to Nazi March
http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20080201/cm_thenation/45278988_1
Fri Feb 1, 2:23 PM ET
The Nation -- On a media conference call organized by the Hillary Clinton campaign today, Clinton surrogate Len Nichols compared an Obama health care ad to Nazis.
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Accusing political opponents of Nazism is an outrageous smear. Raising the specter of a Nazi march in response to a health care mailer that evokes the insurance industry is so absurd, it would be hard to take the attack seriously, were it not launched from a high profile national campaign conference call in this crucial stretch of the presidential race. And political observers know, of course, that the Clinton Campaign regularly arranges opportunities for surrogates to launch these kind of smears, which are later followed up with apologies. (See: Bob Johnson, Bill Shaheen, Bob Kerrey, and Francine Torge, to name the most recent offenders.) For his part, Nichols did not immediately return a call requesting further comment.
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Len Nichols, Director of New America's Health Policy Program, stated, "For nearly 17 years I have worked tirelessly to reform our nation's struggling health system. Today my passion overwhelmed me. I chose an analogy that was wholly inappropriate. I am deeply sorry for any offense that my unfortunate comments may have caused.