I think it’s obvious I read what you wrote, so let’s not slip down that rabbit hole, okay? And no, I don’t know STJ, but you claim only superficial knowledge of her yourself. What was the point of asking those questions again?

What I do know is that the Clinton campaign thinks highly enough of her to send her out to speak on the candidate’s behalf. 99 times out of 100 when campaigns do this they make sure the surrogates know what talking points they want to push. Both you and I know that this is a standard practice. And yet you argue that there’s no way Clinton wanted her to take this tact? Well, okay, but I strongly disagree with that and I’ve said as much in this post. Especially when another Clinton spokesperson, Mo Elleithee, said the following the day of the controversy…

“We don’t think there’s anything wrong with this photo. Sen. Clinton has herself, while traveling abroad, dressed in traditional, local dress. And there’s nothing divisive about that.”

He also tried to push back at Obama: “We think it is wrong for the Obama campaign to say that this is divisive photo. It’s not a divisive photo.”

Does STJ’s statement sound similar to Mo’s statement? It certainly does to me. In fact, STJ’s statement sounds like a refinement of Mo’s. Like when Mark Penn came on Hardball after Bill Shaheen had talked about Obama’s drug use. Penn proceeded to say the word “cocaine” a couple times, and Joe Trippi (John Edwards’ campaign manager at the time) was on the program and called him out on it because it was transparently an attempt to link Obama to cocaine use.

And all of you are right…I’m not giving Clinton the benefit of the doubt. The time for that has passed for me and I think I’ve explained AND detailed exactly why.

Thanks for your comment.

The Clinton campaign has a tendency towards being incompetant (as even you post, oddly enough) and you assume some malfeasance? What’s the logic?

There is none. Two words: Occam’s Razor.

“I understand moderate bloggers tendency to want to be fair and give the benefit of the doubt, in doing so they’re giving the Clinton camp an open door to say or do whatever they want as long as it’s not traceable back to the campaign itself.” – jg

Sure. And I understand the tendency of Obama supporting bloggers to want to blame the Clinton campaign for every dirty trick whether or not there is any evidence to support it, but in doing so they’re giving right wing operatives an open door to do whatever they want as long they can leave an absurd easily spoofed “clue” pointing at the other campaign.

Do I know it was a GOP sympathetic dirty trickster that sent this picture to long time Clinton sympathizer MATT DRUDGE? No, of course not. It is just that there is exactly as much evidence pointing in that direction as there is pointing in the Clinton campaign direction. And there is an equally long history of dirty campaign tricks, maybe even longer and dirtier. And its just more logical, since there was no upside for the Clinton campaign to send this. None. But lets blame the Clinton campaign.

My biggest flaw with the theories that this is all intentional is that this would be the dumbest thing her campaign could possibly do.