Hillary mocks Obama, next follows her concession.

My only thought looking at this is how can this be an effective strategy to win over Obama leaning folks? She is in effect calling them deluded. I suppose there are some folks who would switch votes rather than be mocked, but I suspect most others will just get mad. Maybe she figures if I'm going to lose, I'll call it as I see it.

Seems like it's not particularly clear if it's actually Clinton's campaign doing that. Drudge says so -- and we know that there's been a Clinton-Drudge connection -- but now Clinton's campaign is denying it.

Of course, if they deny it and it turns out it WAS them after all, that adds a level of dethpicability. (Sorry, channeling Daffy Duck...)

Now, Drudge's claim is vague -- who circulated it? and who did they circulate it to? And, in any case, this is Drudge. So as a fact witness his say-so is close to meaningless.

We spent the better part of the morning trying to do is get some comment from the Clinton campaign. For the first hour or more we couldn't get any anything. Then we got this statement in which the Clinton camp says Obama should be "ashamed" at saying the picture is "divisive," without addressing one way or another what they're accused of doing.

Here's the text ...

Quote:

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.

Put it all together and the Clinton camp would appear to be unwilling to make even the most perfunctory denial that they are or were circulating this photo around.

We held up on this because we never want to take Drudge as a fact witness for anything. But I think the Clinton camp's statement speaks for itself.

--Josh Marshall

(Clinton campaign aides denied circulating the photo, although they worry that, if someone on the campaign -- 700 people now -- did so without authorization, they will be in a pickle.

Maybe, reader TV, I owe you an apology.

This statement by Clinton campaign manager Maggie Williams does not include a denial that said photograph was distributed by the campaign, which, perhaps, one can justify under the assumption that Williams doesn't have access to the e-mail records of all 700 of her employees.

To the contrary: she argues that the photograph is not offensive and that its publication and the Drudge/Plouffe reactions to it are distractions from "serious" issues.

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."

OK -- so someone (connected to the Clinton campaign?) circulated the photo because they wanted to show everyone how cool Obama looked in it... and the Obama campaign, for questioning the motive of the person who distributed it, is being offensive?