Josh Marshall has more:With the presidential campaign clock ticking down, Sen. John McCain has suddenly discovered a new boogeyman to link to Sen. Barack Obama: a sometimes controversial but widely respected Middle East scholar named Rashid Khalidi. In the past couple of days, Mr. McCain and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, have likened Mr. Khalidi, the director of a Middle East institute at Columbia University, to neo-Nazis; called him "a PLO spokesman"; and suggested that the Los Angeles Times is hiding something sinister by refusing to release a videotape of a 2003 dinner in honor of Mr. Khalidi at which Mr. Obama spoke. Mr. McCain even threw former Weatherman Bill Ayers into the mix, suggesting that the tape might reveal that Mr. Ayers -- a terrorist-turned-professor who also has been an Obama acquaintance -- was at the dinner.
For the record, Mr. Khalidi is an American born in New York who graduated from Yale a couple of years after George W. Bush. For much of his long academic career, he taught at the University of Chicago, where he and his wife became friends with Barack and Michelle Obama. In the early 1990s, he worked as an adviser to the Palestinian delegation at peace talks in Madrid and Washington sponsored by the first Bush administration. We don't agree with a lot of what Mr. Khalidi has had to say about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the years, and Mr. Obama has made clear that he doesn't, either. But to compare the professor to neo-Nazis -- or even to Mr. Ayers -- is a vile smear. [emphasis added]
The McCain campaign has been throwing around so much mud and smears in recent weeks that it's easy to miss just how ugly and shameful their character assassination of Rashid Khalidi is. This is an entirely respectable, highly respected scholar. To go further into making a case for him would only be to enable and indulge McCain's sordid appeal to racism. For McCain, personally, to compare Khalidi to a neo-nazi, it's just an offense McCain should never be forgiven for. It's right down in the gutter with Joe McCarthy and the worst of the worst.Ladies and Gentlemen, the formerly honorable John McCain.
16 comments:
John K: Release the tapes then. Just let us decide. Fair and balanced. Hussein Obama's birth certificate by the State of HI was sealed after his last trip there. No wonder Hussein Obama didn't take the wife and kids. And while we are at it, how about those Law School records. Every time some info on Hussein Obama leaks out it is never good for him. Which is why he is protected. Time for the press to do its job, release the tapes.
John K: Curious how everything we needed to know about Joe the Plumber was available in 24 hours. Even info the Govt had guaranteed would be private. Well, that is because a Democrat hack working for the State of Ohio illegally looked into the records . Then, of course Olbermouth published them. But when it comes to Hussein Obama stuff, the press protects him. Don't you left wingers find that curious or just business as usual. LMAO LOL LOL LOL
The tape was apparently provided to the LA Times with the understanding that it would not be released to the general public.
And that works for you. You find conspiracy in any dark corner you can. You accuse the Obama and left of being neo-Nazis, fascists, communists, socialists, brown shirts and so on. Yet it is the Bush administration which authorized warrantless wiretaps, who suppressed habeas corpus, who authorized and paid for people to be kidnapped, held indefinitely in foreign prisons, tortured and quite probably killed, and who set up the prison at Guantanamo Bay. I suppose John McCain would continue the announced goal of gaining a permanent Republican Majority by taking the right to vote away from persons of color, and people who do not pass religion tests. America will become that great, white, protestant paradise you long for.
mccain gave gov money to this man and his org. 10 years ago. about half a mil.
NOW just because this man has a middle eastern name he is being smeared.
gee, what if someday, polish sounding names or italian sounding names get you vilified?
think about it.
it's a slippery slope and mccain just belly flooped all the way to the bottom on this one.
Well, should Poles ever get a bad name, at least they'll have Duke University to defend them, with the legacy of Coach K.
John K: LOL LOL Those tapes were provided to the LA Times over 6 months ago by a Clinton staffer. So why aren't they being released? You want me to take the word of a liberal that there is nothing on those tapes? LOL LOL Liberals who will lie about everything. Sort of lying that you liberals tried to pull by saying no Democrat party hack released the private info on Joe the Plumber. LOL LOL
John K: Remember left wing kooks. We knew more about Joe the Plumber within 24 hours than we have about Hussein Obama. And it has been two years. We don't even have access to his law school writings. Hmmmmm Gee I wonder why? Like I don't already know. LMAO
Apparently the press has had access to the Law Review material produced during Obama's Presidency. Apparently he didn't write anything as Law review President, but probably did the previous year. Politico has an article they attribute to Obama (confirmed by the Obama campaign). They don't reprint it because it is copyrighted, but they indicate where you can find it in a law library. As for the rest of whatever Obama wrote for classes at Harvard, why should he release that stuff? It was his class work. Has John McCain released his Anapolis class work? McCain barely released his medical records (only available to a selct group of reporters, most not doctors, for a couple of hours).
John K: No you can't Ed Heath. The papers have been sealed. Just like Clinton's were. Just like the Gov of HI sealing Hussein Obama's birth certificate and the LA Times refusing to let news be news on Khalidi. LOL LOL Did you lefties learn censorship from Stalin or Castro?
John K: But not to fear, Olbermouth has told us there is nothing there on the Khalidi tape and I accept his word. LOL LMAO LOL Yah and Tampa will the world series.
So you are saying I can read John McCain's class work from Annapolis?
I am amazed that the wingnuts are STILL bleating about the birth certificate.
Don't they read World Net Daily? WND confirmed the birth certificate is authentic.
Get real
John K: LOL You want to read McCain stuff from the Naval Academy. Okay with me. You ought to read his stuff from the Senate. He crossed the aisle so many times he ought to be a Democrat. Hussein Obama never actually served in the Senate. He sort of showed up a whopping 143 days simply because like welfare he had to, to get a paycheck. LMAO
John K: So where is the ACLU in this Joe the Plumber case? I don't see them whining about violation of privacy. Don't they do that when govt employees access private info and then release it? Or do they only do that when it comes to liberals. ACLU doesn't do squat to protect my civil rights. I am a conservative.
I should read McCain's record in the Senate? You mean how McCain voted with Bush 90% of the time (his own words)?
You are saying you are a conservative and you are whining about civil rights? Is that a joke? You bring us the Patriot Act, warrantless wiretaps, suspended habeas corpus, extraordinary rendition, and Guantanamo Bay and then you want the ACLU to protect you? Poor baby.
Do you know why these smears of your's don't work John K.? Do you know why have cheap trick the GOP has tried to play has fallen flat?
It's because you and the Republican Party, and conservatives in general, have NO credibility.
When the country looks for who's to blame for the state we're in, they see Republicans.
Without credibility, you might as well be talking to yourself.
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