DES MOINES, Iowa – Hillary Rodham Clinton fired an Iowa organizer yesterday who forwarded a smear e-mail claiming Barack Obama is secretly a radical Muslim determined to destroy the country from within.
The outlandish e-mail claims, “The Muslims have said they plan on destroying the US from the inside out, what better way to start than at the highest level – through the President of the United States, one of their own!!!!”
“Obama takes great care to conceal the fact that he is a Muslim,” goes the anonymous screed.
“THIS COUNTRY WAS FOUNDED, ‘ONE NATION UNDER GOD.’ ALMIGHTY GOD, NOT THE GOD OF THE KORAN.”
The political organizer, whom The Post has identified as Judy Rose, was Clinton’s Jones County coordinator for next month’s Iowa caucuses, where Clinton and Obama are running neck-and-neck. Rose also serves as secretary of the Jones County Democratic Party.
Obama is a member of the Church of Christ who, as a child living in Indonesia, once attended a Muslim school that has been falsely characterized as a radical madrassa.
Also receiving the hoax e-mail was Ryan Callahan, a paid Clinton staffer. Callahan denounced the e-mail as “racist and ignorant” in a response he sent to Rose when he received it.
But Callahan didn’t tell higher-ups.
The Clinton campaign yesterday canned Rose.
“There is no place in our campaign, or any campaign, for this kind of politics,” wrote Clinton campaign manger Patty Solis Doyle, calling the e-mail “outrageous and offensive.”
“This was wholly unauthorized and we were totally unaware of it. Let me be clear: No one should be engaging in this,” she said, adding that the campaign asked a county coordinator to “step down.”
Grace Zimmerman, the county’s retired treasurer listed in a campaign press release as part of “Team Hillary,” also got the e-mail.
Zimmerman told The Post that Rose forwarded it to her without comment, but then called her to tell her she was “outraged” by it.
The e-mail came to light when Gary Hart, the Jones County chairman, wrote on the Daily Kos Web site that, “I have received two of the most hateful hit pieces on Obama parroting right-wing talking points. One was forwarded to me from a Clinton county chair.”
He also wrote that he is a Chris Dodd supporter.
A man answering the phone in Rose’s house said she couldn’t be reached, adding, “She has an e-mail that she’s received and she says that’s that – goodbye.”
Zimmerman claimed that Clinton could lose some support in Jones County.