Nasty, Hillary. Just nasty.

Hillary Clinton 2008 Birther Origins

A former McClatchy Washington Bureau chief said on Twitter earlier today that close Clinton confidante Sidney Blumenthal told him to his face in 2008 that then Senator Barack Obama was born in Kenya, and he should send a reporter there to check it out. -Debra Heine

The lie that Barack Obama was not born in the US has been fuelled by fringe Republicans — but supporters of Hillary Clinton, now Mr Obama’s Secretary of State, are largely to blame for starting it. -Jon Swaine Go To Site

New analysis from the Washington Post removes any doubt that the anti-Obama Birther movement was started in 2007 and 2008 by Hillary Clinton, her campaign, and her Democrat supporters.

  As Breitbart News reported earlier this month, other left-wing media outlets, like Politico and the Guardian, had already traced the Birther movement back to Democrats and Ms. Clinton. -John Nolte Go To Site

“On the very day that Senator Clinton is giving a speech about restoring respect for America in the world, her campaign has engaged in the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering we’ve seen from either party in this election..." -David Plouffe Go To Site

I am shocked at the audacity of Hillary Clinton to decry Donald Trump as a birther because her campaign not only pushed that item in a bid to discredit Barack Obama, but mounted a sustained campaign attack Obama on a broad array of issues.

  How do I know? I was part of that effort and was in regular email and phone coordination with Sidney Blumenthal. Sidney was the conduit who fed damaging material to me that I subsequently posted on my blog. -Larry Johnson Go To Site

A former McClatchy Washington Bureau chief said on Twitter earlier today that close Clinton confidante Sidney Blumenthal told him to his face in 2008 that then Senator Barack Obama was born in Kenya, and he should send a reporter there to check it out. -Debra Heine Go To Site

Hillary Clinton supporters were the original “Birthers,” and Obama himself muddied the waters by allowing his literary agent to claim for years that he had been “born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia.” -Joel B. Pollak Go To Site

"I cannot imagine America electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values." -Mark Penn, chief strategist to Hillary Clinton's 2008 campaign for president Go To Site

Democrat, Liberal, Obama, Narrative, Oops, Smears, Lie

Meanwhile, former McClatchy Washington Bureau Chief James Asher tweeted Friday that Blumenthal had “told me in person” that Obama was born in Kenya. “During the 2008 Democratic primary, Sid Blumenthal visited the Washington Bureau of McClatchy Co.,” Asher said in an email Friday to McClatchy, noting that he was at the time the investigative editor and in charge of Africa coverage.

  “During that meeting, Mr. Blumenthal and I met together in my office and he strongly urged me to investigate the exact place of President Obama’s birth, which he suggested was in Kenya. We assigned a reporter to go to Kenya, and that reporter determined that the allegation was false.

Democrat, Liberal, Obama, Narrative, Oops, Smears, Lie

It now looks like those "harsh attacks" that Blumenthal spread included birtherism. James Asher, former editor of McClatchy's DC bureau alleged Friday that Blumenthal had in fact directly brought the allegations to the newspaper chain in 2008 and asked them to investigate.

  Blumenthal denied that he'd spread the rumor in an email to the Boston Globe. But later in the day, McClatchy itself made it clear that the charge has merit. In fact the chain sent a reporter to Kenya at Blumenthal's urging, to look into what he had to say "and that reporter determined that the allegation was false." -Jeremy Lott

Democrat, Liberal, Obama, Narrative, Oops, Smears, Lie, Image

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe accused the Clinton campaign Monday of "shameful offensive fear-mongering" by circulating a photo as an attempted smear. Plouffe was reacting to a banner headline on the Drudge Report saying that aides to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) had e-mailed a photo calling attention to the African roots of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.)...

  "The photo, taken in 2006, shows the Democrat front-runner dressed as a Somali Elder, during his visit to Wajir, a rural area in northeastern Kenya," the Drudge Report said.

Democrat, Liberal, Election, Obama, Smears, Lie

Patti Solis Doyle, who was Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager in 2008 until the Iowa caucuses, admitted on Friday that a Clinton campaign staffer had, in fact, circulated the Birther conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was born outside the U.S. and therefore potentially ineligible to serve in the presidency.

  Doyle made the admission on Twitter, as she responded to former George W. Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer. Fleischer said that Clinton’s staff had spread the rumor. Doyle said that was a “lie” — but admitted, in the same tweet, that she had fired the “rogue” staffer who had used email to spread the Birther conspiracy theory.

Democrat, Liberal, Election, Obama, Smears, Lie

An anonymous email circulated by supporters of Mrs Clinton, Mr Obama’s main rival for the party’s nomination, thrust a new allegation into the national spotlight — that he had not been born in Hawaii...

  “Barack Obama’s mother was living in Kenya with his Arab-African father late in her pregnancy,” it said. “She was not allowed to travel by plane then, so Barack Obama was born there and his mother then took him to Hawaii to register his birth.

  “Obama carries multiple citizenships and is ineligible to run for President of the United States. United States Constitution, Article II, Section 1,” it said.

Democrat, Liberal, Election, Character, Smears, Fear, Demagoguery, Islam, Drugs, Religion

Barack Obama's campaign team today accused Hillary Clinton's beleaguered staff of mounting a desperate dirty tricks operation by circulating a picture of him in African dress, feeding into false claims on US websites that he is a Muslim.

  Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe, described it as "the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering we've seen from either party in this election". Obama has had to spend much of the campaign stressing he is a Christian not a Muslim and did not study at a madrassa.

  The Obama campaign has repeatedly claimed it has been the target of dirty tricks by the Clinton team. A senior member of her staff, Bill Shaheen, had to resign last year after raising Obama's admitted use of marijuana and cocaine as a youth.

These attacks sent out by Blumenthal, long known for his fierce and combative loyalty to the Clintons, draw on a wide variety of sources to spread his Obama-bashing. -Peter Dreier Go To Site

Almost every day over the past six months, I have been the recipient of an email that attacks Obama’s character, political views, electability, and real or manufactured associations...

  But they aren’t being emailed out from some fringe right-wing group that somehow managed to get my email address. Instead, it is Sidney Blumenthal who, on a regular basis, methodically dispatches these email mudballs to an influential list of opinion shapers... -Peter Dreier Go To Site