A photograph of Barack Obama wearing a turban and African garb hit the Internet, sparking a political firestorm - amid reports the Clinton campaign may have been behind it.The Drudge Report Web site posted the photo of Obama, taken by The Associated Press in 2006 when he visited Wajir (Kenya), where his roots are, and wrote Clinton staffers "circulated" the photo over the weekend by e-mail.
"Wouldn't we be seeing this on the cover of every magazine if it were HRC?" read an e-mail, allegedly penned by one campaign staffer, referring to Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The controversy is one of the few times an anonymous whisper campaign that Obama is a Muslim - waged almost entirely on the Internet - has spilled into the mainstream, preying on fears of some Americans over radical Islamic terrorism, and coming eight days before primaries in Clinton's last-stand states of Texas and Ohio.
Obama said on WOAI radio in Texas, "Everybody knows that whether it's me or Sen. Clinton or Bill Clinton, that when you travel to other countries, they ask you to try on traditional garb that you have been given as a gift.
"The notion that the Clinton campaign would be trying to circulate this as a negative on the same day that Sen. Clinton was giving a speech about how we repair our relationships around the world is sad."
Clinton campaign manager Maggie Williams shot back with a tough statement that Team Obama was manufacturing an issue.
Clinton insisted she knew "nothing about" the photo and called questions about whether her campaign leaked it "really laughable."
In December, two Clinton volunteers in Iowa resigned after forwarding e-mails stating Obama is a closet Muslim planning to destroy America.
The image was apparently mostly unused by media outlets - until the tabloid National Examiner used it in a Feb. 4, 2008, story that aimed to smear Obama as having a link to the terror group al Qaeda.
Matt Drudge did not respond to an e-mail asking if he could verify that the e-mail came from a Clinton staffer.
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