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Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., right, is dressed as a Somali Elder by Sheikh Mahmed Hassan, left, during his visit to Wajir, a rural area in northeastern Kenya, near the borders with Somalia and Ethiopia in this file photo from Aug. 27, 2006. The garb was presented to Obama by elders in Wajir. Obama's estranged late father was Kenyan and Obama visited the country in 2006, attracting thousands of well-wishers. (AP Photo)

In a last ditch effort to save her failing bid to win the Democratic nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton has gone nuclear: she is trying to present her formidable opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, as a secret Muslim and as a Muslim sympathizer. This attempt has failed in the past. Hillary simply looks ruthless, nasty and duplicitous.

In January, 2007, Insight scooped the press with a bombshell report entitled “Hillary's team has questions about Obama's Muslim background.” Insight’s impeccable sources reported that Hillary was conducting “opposition research” on her opponent. In particular, the Clinton camp was trying to discover whether Obama had attended a madrassa in his youthful years in Indonesia. The Clintons were stunned that their research was unveiled: they engaged in adamant denials. In early 2007, Hillary was the front-runner for the Democratic nomination by a large margin and therefore she had no need to resort to the Muslim card. She was saving this for an opportune moment.

The Clintons accused Insight of masterminding a plot whereby the “right-wing press” (their favorite boogey-man) would sabotage Obama’s campaign and then blame the Clintons—thereby derailing both Obama and Hillary; and paving the way for a Republican victory in 2008.

CNN, The Washington Post and The New York Times entered the fray. In “CNN debunks false report about Obama” a journalist who went to Jakarta to investigate Obama’s background insisted that the Illinois senator had never attended a madrassa in Indonesia: he had attended a secular school. In their view, Insight’s story had therefore been “debunked.” The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz, in Media Notes, also parroted the same line. Furthermore, The New York Times published a superficial article, “Feeding Frenzy for a Big Story, Even If It’s False,” written by David Kirkpatrick (he is indeed one of the investigative reporters who produced the much-maligned recent McCain story in The New York Times). The Kirkpatrick article belittled the Insight story: despite having interviewed Insight’s editor, Kirkpatrick even pondered if Insight “actually exists.”

CNN, The Washington Post and The New York Times did a great disservice to Obama and to their readers for they acted as Clinton campaign surrogates rather than as honest news agencies. They did not investigate whether Hillary was in fact launching the Muslim card as part of her campaign strategy. They were only interested in quickly coming to the defense of either Hillary or Obama.

The Obama-Muslin story was revived once again when Obama began to gain momentum in the fall of 2007. A series of e-mails were circulated by Clinton staffers alluding to Obama’s Muslim ties. The Washington Post produced a hotly contested front-page story in November, “Foes Use Obama's Muslim Ties to Fuel Rumors About Him.” As Politico.com reported, there was much dissension among the editors of The Washington Post regarding their sloppy story: the Muslim rumors were simply repeated without clarification or any additional investigation. Even the Post Ombudswoman weighed in on the controversy and subsequently admitted that the report was incomplete and unfair to Obama. Yet, The Washington Post continued to describe the original Insight story as one that had been “discredited.” Nor did the journalists of The Washington Post conduct further inquiries to determine whether the Clinton staffers who had circulated the recent flurry of e-mails were doing so at the direction of the Clintons.

Now that Obama appears to be on the verge of ultimate victory, the Clintons are once again trying desperately to play the Muslim card. This time, the source of the Muslim rumors is more starkly apparent than ever before. The Clinton campaign has been circulating e-mails and conducting briefing sessions for their Jewish donors trying to warn them about Obama’s Muslim ties. Moreover, Clinton staffers began to circulate a picture of Obama taken in 2006 of him dressed as a Somali elder—again, trying to implicate Obama as a Muslim or Muslim sympathizer.

This last act will do little to forestall an Obama triumph. Furthermore, it fully vindicates Insight: the web site can take pride in having exposed the only viable campaign strategy the Clintons had prepared from the outset. Perhaps this is another reason the Clintons did not bother to prepare for primaries which were scheduled after Super Tuesday; they imagined that either Hillary would win outright or that eventually the Muslim card would sink Obama.

Nor can the nasty Clintons simply portray Insight as merely a right-wing news organ intent on sabotaging Democrats: many favorable commentaries on Obama have been published in Insight, including the most recent entitled “Obama Mania Sweeping the Nation.”

Insight has been falsely attacked by the Clintons and has been the victim of erroneous or incomplete reports. CNN, The Washington Post and The New York Times should set the record straight—and should even apologize for their false characterizations of the original story. Sadly, we may be forced to conclude that, for these news outlets, partisanship is more important than truth and accuracy.

Three cheers for Obama for holding his ground; and shame on the Clintons for having played the gender card, the race card and now the Muslim card in this election campaign. As this backfires and they face further humiliation, perhaps they will eventually learn that the truth card is the only one worth playing for it is always the strongest hand.

-Grace Vuoto is the Executive Director of The Edmund Burke Institute on American Renewal. The opinions expressed in this article are her own.