2010: What Not to Wear

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Farouk Shami got himself photographed wearing a scarf that says "Palestine" on one end and "Jerusalem is ours" on the other.

It wasn't his, campaign aides say, but was put around his neck by Derek King, the nephew of Martin Luther King Jr., after the two rode together on Monday in Houston's MLK Day parade.

"There was a group at the parade handing them out," says Shami spokeswoman Kelly Love Johnson. She says the scarves were being passed out at the parade and that King wore it during the parade (NewsWireHouston took photos verifying that). When the ride was over, she said, King "took it off his neck and put it on Farouk's neck."

A blogger — Neil Aquino of Texas Liberal — got someone to take his photo next to Shami (that's him on the left) and posted on his blog. Now it's going all over the Democratic blogosphere, with not a little bit of hype. "They're turning it into scarf-gate," Johnson says."... it was something that a blogger did to get traffic."

She says Shami was proud to be in the parade, and that it would have been rude to take off the scarf after King put it on him. "He wasn't wearing it today, if that helps," she says.