OK, here’s an odd little twist.

Barack Obama’s camp is explaining this picture …

… by saying he was wearing traditional Somali garb.

Well, apparently now, Hillary Clinton’s camp is explaining this photo …

…. by saying she was wearing traditional Halloween garb.

Here’s an interesting item from today’s “Reliable Source” column in the Washington Post:

Barack Obama is the latest presidential contender to feel the wrath of a crooner — Sam Moore of the legendary R&B duo Sam & Dave, who recently demanded the campaign stop playing their “Hold On, I’m Comin’ ” at rallies, where some fans sang it as “Hold On, Obama’s Coming.”

The problem? The singer’s wife, Joyce, told us they feared it would look like Moore had endorsed Obama, which he has not. But Sam Moore himself also cited artistic qualms.

“When the song was first recorded by Dave and myself, it was pulled off the market because it had such sexual orientations,” he said yesterday. (Sample lyrics: Reach out to me for satisfaction / Call my name now for quick reaction.) “I don’t want to get graphic with this, but how do you take a song about getting girls and turn it into a political thing? Somebody’s really desperate!”

In recent weeks, John McCain stopped playing John Mellencamp tunes after the singer’s rep protested their politics are incompatible; and Mike Huckabee pulled the plug on Boston’s”More Than a Feeling” after a complaint from the songwriter, an Obama guy.

Moore has reason to be wary: When he let Bob Dole tweak his classic “Soul Man” in ‘96 (”Dole Man”), the songwriters cried foul. And if a song gets too closely linked to a campaign, it hurts its potential for getting licensed elsewhere.

A rep for the Obama camp told reporters over the weekend they would stop playing “Hold On.”

Interesting because at one time, Sam Moore was close to the late Republican Party chairman and Bush 41 strategist Lee Atwater.

For the Bush Inaugural Ball in 1989 Atwater set up a concert that featured Moore.  Moore told this to Congress in 1998:

“Later in my career, I had the personal honor to participate in the George Bush’s inaugural celebration for Young Americans,” which my wife produced in association with Lee Atwater.”

Moore also played on Atwater’s album “Red, Hot and Blue.”

Here they are together.

Wonder if Obama will earn a similar photo.

It’s fascinating to see former senior Clinton administration official Hillary Clinton slobbering all over “Saturday Night Live.”

Examples in today’s Washington Post abound.

Here’s one:

During a fundraiser in Boston late Sunday, Clinton referred to a skit on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” that depicted a CNN debate in which questioners fawned over Obama.

“I just have this sense that finally my opponent is getting maybe a little bit of scrutiny,” Clinton told about 300 supporters to loud cheers. “How many of you saw ‘Saturday Night Live’? . . . That wouldn’t have happened just a couple of weeks ago. . . . We have two candidates and we’ve been focused on one more than the other in terms of asking the hard questions.”

Here’s another:

But before the breakfast crowd had a chance to digest that, they were served another, stranger course by Clinton campaign spokesman Phil Singer. Asked about an accusation on the Drudge Report that Clinton staffers had circulated a photo of Barack Obama wearing Somali tribal dress, Singer let ‘er rip.

“I find it interesting that in a room of such esteemed journalists that Mr. Drudge has become your respected assignment editor,” he lectured. “I find it to be a reflection of one of the problems that’s gone on with the overall coverage of this campaign.” He went on to chide the journalists for their “woefully inadequate” coverage of Obama, “a point that has been certainly backed up by the ‘Saturday Night Live’ skit that opened the show this past Saturday evening, which I would refer you all to.”

Why is all this so fascinating? Because as we see in today’s Weekly Standard, there was a time when the Clinton machine was on the warpath against “Saturday Night Live,” calling the show’s treatment of Chelsea Clinton “unbelievably cruel.”

Comedy and politics can be so fickle sometimes.

Bad news illegal aliens — you don’t exist anymore.  So sayeth the Washington Times.
From Fishbowl:

All: Here are some recent updates to TWT style. 1) Clinton will be the headline word for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. 2) Gay is approved for copy and preferred over homosexual, except in clinical references or references to sexual activity. 3) The quotation marks will come off gay marriage (preferred over homosexual marriage). 4) Moderate is approved, but centrist is still allowed. 5) We will use illegal immigrants, not illegal aliens.

Now that illegal aliens don’t exist anymore, maybe they can likewise make my parking tickets disappear.

We continue our special in-depth educational series, Meet Your Superdelegates.  A rare chance to get to know specific superdelegates who will be deciding the Democratic presidential nominee.  We’re focusing on party elders, government officials, senior advisors, and other high profile politicians who feature prominently in television and film.  And we boldly speculate who they will back at the Democratic convention.  Today’s superdelegate profile comes from the breakthrough dramatic movie sensation “The Godfather, Part II.”

Pat Geary is a corrupt Democratic U.S. senator from Nevada who has a rough-languaged encounter with Michael Corleone.  Geary also spends a night with a prostitute in a brothel.  Having suffered from an alcoholic blackout, he awakes in a bed covered in blood next to the woman, who is dead. The dead prostitute’s wrists are handcuffed; her legs spread wide. Geary has no memory of what happened. Tom Hagen arrives on the scene and promises Geary that since the woman has no family, the matter can be safely covered up. It is implied that the Corleones have engineered this situation, perhaps through drugging the senator.  When a U.S. Senate committee is investigating organized crime and subpoenas Michael and others to answer to charges of criminal activity, Geary speaks in defense of Italian-Americans, deploring the stereotyping of them as criminals.  Presumably, Geary’s extensive Senatorial experience and lack of good manners when speaking makes him less inclined to support Barack Obaman — which likely lands him in Hillary Clinton’s camp.

Previous profile: Mayor Goldie Wilson from “Back to the Future.”
Next profile: Congresswoman Maude Findlay from “Maude.”

With more and more folks noticing that Hillary Clinton’s campaign spent $1,300 at Dunkin Donuts, it’s worth running this Barack Obama picture spotted at the tasty So Good blog.

Here’s gratitude for ya:

Press release from the office of Rep. Albert Wynn (D-MD), who recently lost his primary:

Wynn Only Member from MD to Earn 100% Rating From the League of Conservation Voters

MSNBC’s Tom Curry:

The League of Conservation Voters (LCV) has spent nearly $130,000 against Wynn

Don’t tell Lou Dobbs that a buncha foreigners done swept the Academy Awards.  He might demand a security fence be built around the Oscar accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

But even was more enjoyable than watching liberal Hollywood weep while hearing an acceptance speech in Spanish (presumably before returning home to their mansion-full armies of Spanish-speaking servants and contractors, with nary a tear in sight), is this pivot by former high ranking Clinton Administration official Hillary Clinton:

The senator from New York has tried to distance herself from NAFTA, which is unpopular among workers in manufacturing who believe the deal has contributed to the movement of jobs overseas. In Ohio on Saturday, Clinton argued that while NAFTA “passed” during husband Bill Clinton’s administration in 1993, President George H.W. Bush actually “negotiated” the deal. Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland (D), a Clinton backer, told Bloomberg News this weekend that Bill Clinton told him Hillary Clinton had opposed NAFTA in 1993.

Now there’s an acting performance worthy of an Academy Award.

We continue our special in-depth educational series, Meet Your Superdelegates.  A rare chance to get to know specific superdelegates who will be deciding the Democratic presidential nominee.  We’re focusing on party elders, government officials, senior advisors, and other high profile politicians who feature prominently in television and film.  And we boldly speculate who they will back at the Democratic convention.  Today’s superdelegate profile comes from the breakthrough comedy movie sensation “Back to the Future.”

Mayor Goldie (no relation to Golde Meir) Wilson became Hill Valley mayor in the early 1980s, and sought re-election in 1985. A campaign van was seen advertising the following recorded message:

“Reelect Mayor Goldie Wilson. Progress is his middle name. Mayor Goldie Wilson’s progress platform means more jobs, better education, bigger civic improvements, and lower taxes. On election day, cast your vote for a proven leader. Re-elect Mayor Goldie Wilson…”

This is the exact same campaign message conveyed by his predecessor, Mayor Red Thomas, who was running for re-election in 1955.

In other words, plagiarism.  That makes Wilson an upstanding booster of Barack Obama.

Previous profile: President Merkin Muffley from “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.”
Next profile: Senator Pat Geary from “Godfather, Part II”

Barack Obama versus Hillary Clinton: The battle heats up.  Not yet mud slinging — unless we’re talking mud pies.