Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton swears she had nothing to do with spreading like a bad Internet virus the now-famous picture of rival Barack Obama in Somali tribal garb.

Even in the middle of politics’ silly season, she may actually be right.

This Associated Press photo of Sen. Barack Obama in Kenya was published in the supermarket tabloid Globe in May 2007.

Miami Beach-based cyber-provocateur Matt Drudge earlier this week published the shot on his Web site, underscoring it with an unsourced story that Clinton’s peeps were passing it around.

What most who hyperventilated didn’t seem to know: The conservative-leaning Drudge was far from being first to spotlight it. Anyone in a U.S. supermarket checkout line in May 2007 could have stared at the same picture that has only now inflamed passions.

The May 11 edition of Globe — as in Boca’s AMI, not Boston — featured a two-page story about Obama’s background and ran the picture of the Democratic favorite in ceremonial turban and robe during a 2006 trip to Kenya.

“I’m shocked no one made a big deal out of this months ago,” says Globe editor Tony Frost. “Here you have a man whose middle name is Hussein dressed as a Muslim. I thought it was a great news photo.”

When Obama became a Hollywood darling last year with tons of cash pouring into his campaign from the likes of entertainers George Clooney, Eddie Murphy and Oprah, Frost sent reporters to Obama teen-years stomping ground, Hawaii.

There, Frost says, his staffers were told to look into the existence of pictures of a turbaned Obama.

Strangely enough, Frost says, a set of those Africa photos was readily available in the archives of the Associated Press. Globe bought one for less than $250 and slapped it on its cover.

“Anybody can buy those pictures,” Frost says.

True, says an AP Photo Services spokesman who also said the shot was taken by an AP photographer Aug. 27, 2006.

Obama supporters assailed the picture’s use partly because it makes Obama, a Christian, appear to have Muslim sympathies.

The presidential wannabe told a Dallas radio station earlier this week: “The notion that they would try to use this to imply in some way that I’m foreign, I think is, you know, unfortunate. These are the kinds of political tricks and silliness you start seeing at the end of campaigns.”

All he was doing when the photo was snapped, Obama said, was being honored by Somali elders.

Such a picture, however, could have an effect on some folks who already thought Obama wasn’t forthcoming about his past, says West Palm Beach political consultant Richard Giorgio. His company, Patriot Games, worked for Clinton’s campaign last year.

“That kind of picture could add fuel on the fire among certain voters,” Giorgio said. “But Obama’s people have done a good job explaining what the picture was about and defusing it.”

He swears he’s not going to his New York Giants’ training camp later this year.

Instead, he’ll be traveling to Africa, Europe and the Caribbean - and waiting for his Super Bowl ring.

And despite losing half his fortune to his ex-wife in 2006, he still believes in love - even after a divorce that included allegations that he secretly filmed his then-wife’s sister in various stages of undress, prompting New York papers to nickname him ‘Peeping Mike.’

Welcome to Michael Strahan unplugged!

Page 2.1 caught up with the feared quarterback-sack artist from the world champion New York Giants in a posh Intracoastal mansion in Manalapan.

The buttoned-down Strahan, 36, and his Giants sidekick Justin Tuck spent a few days in the area recently, catching some polo in Wellington and making appearances on behalf of the John T. Petters Foundation, an educational nonprofit.

At the foundation’s fundraiser, Strahan and Tuck jumped on stage as their memorabilia was auctioned and massaged the well-heeled crowd into buying and buying and buying. Strahan even sold a personal tour of Giants Stadium, including the locker room at peak hour. That went for $17,500.

Did he have permission? What would Eli (Manning, the Giants’ QB) say?

“There’s one man who runs the locker room, and you’re looking at him,” Strahan said.

But in the balmy SoFla winter night, Strahan wasn’t much in the mood to talk football.

His better half happens to be ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ star Eddie Murphy’s ex-wife who, in nearly two decades with the funnyman, became the mother of their five children.

Strahan and former model Nicole Murphy, 40, had tongues wagging at the foundation barbecue Friday with some edgy public displays of affection.

Are we hearing wedding bells?

“I’ve been down that road before,” Strahan said, sarcastically referring to the spectacular divorce from Jean Strahan that ended up costing him $15.3 million. “We (he and Nicole) love each other. We enjoy each other. We’ll leave it at that.”

Wait a second. You still believe in love?

“Believe me, there was a time I didn’t,” he says. “I’ve got a great lady.”

Again, is that “Here Comes The Bride” playing in the background?

“I would not frown away from that. But you still have to ask, and they have to say, ‘Yes.’ I don’t even know if she loves me that much.”

Murphy tells me she met the big man in NYC at a dinner where a common friend made sure they connected.

For her, too, some time has passed since she and Eddie split.

“I have more experience,” she says. “I know now what I want in a man. Michael and I talk about everything, and we both love to travel, explore.”

In just four years since its inception, the Tico Torres Classic has become one of the highest-profile rendezvous of the social season in Palm Beach County’s north side — the area’s answer to Boca Raton’s Chris Evert Pro-Celebrity Tennis Classic.

First, by the people it lures at PBA National resort, both for a Sunday night wingding and a Monday morning round of golf on the course featured in the upcoming Honda Classic. As former TV talker and health advocate Montel Williams told me at the event’s gala Sunday night: When Bon Jovi drummer Torres asks that you come to his fundraiser, you tend to accept.

Others who heeded Torres’ phone call: Actors Cheech Marin, Jack McGee (TV’s Rescue Me) and Jansen Panettiere (brother to 17-year-old Heroes star Hayden Panettiere); Carolyn Kepcher, fired assistant to Donald Trump on The Apprentice; Olympic speed skating hero Dan Jansen; New York Giants greats Lawrence Taylor and Ottis Anderson; Miami Dolphins sack artist Jason Taylor; retired New York Yankees Paul O’Neill and Jimmy Key; and free agent catcher Mike Piazza.

And then, the Tico Torres Classic stands out for the boatloads of cash it manages to grab from financial heavyweights. Organizer Gina Franano expects that the event raised upward of 400K for the Children’s Healthcare Charity.

Nearly half of the loot came from a silent auction that included a trip for four to Los Angeles to hang out with teen singing sensation Miley Cyrus on the set of her Disney TV show, Hannah Montana.

That item was eventually bought by local philanthropist Elizabeth Fago for a whopping $31,000.

By all accounts, including his own, star conservative radio-talker and recovering prescription-drug abuser Rush Limbaugh isn’t letting his addiction stand in the way of a good time.

Limbaugh was absolutely truthful when, a few months into his probation for a doctor-shopping charge, he started reporting to his state handler that he drank casually.

Now, probation completed, the Palm Beach gazillionaire is routinely spotted at Trevini on Worth Avenue, spending early bird time sipping on cocktails with sweetheart Kathryn Rogers.

And when Page 2.1 traded media-war stories with El Rushbo in Miami recently, the talk was fueled by just the right amount of libation.

“I never had a problem with it (liquor) before I went to rehab (in 2003, to treat an addiction to OxyContin), so it’s not going to become a problem now,” Limbaugh said. “Besides, I challenge anyone to say I was ever carried out of a party because of drinking.”

Truth be told, that night in Miami, the anti-John-McCain-for-president firebrand was as coherent at the midnight hour as he had been in the early evening.

But, drug addiction specialists say, Limbaugh should know better.

“This is called cross-dependency,” says Juan Harris, clinical director at West Palm Beach’s Hanley Center. Although Limbaugh went to Arizona for his problem, celebs and professional athletes are at times spotted at Hanley. “Once a person has become addicted to a mood-altering substance, their brain chemistry has changed. They can easily become addicted to another substance, like alcohol.

“But alcohol is likely to lead a recovering addict back to his drug of choice.”

And if booze creeps into the life of a recovering drug addict, Harris added, the question isn’t if the person eventually becomes hooked again — it’s when.

“Ninety-five percent of those who drink after treatment eventually come back to us,” Harris says.

Maybe Limbaugh should move across the Pond.

“In Europe,” says Harris, “they teach harm reduction. Eight drinks today is better than 10 yesterday. But in this country, it’s about abstinence.

“He shouldn’t drink even one cocktail.”