McCain campaign accuses L.A. Times of 'suppressing' Obama video

[Murrican]

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-video29-2008oct29,0,7568849.story

McCain campaign accuses L.A. Times of 'suppressing' Obama video
The Times says its promise to a source prevents the paper from posting the video, which shows Barack Obama praising Palestinian activist Rashid Khalidi at a 2003 banquet. The story first appeared in April.

By a Times staff writer
6:01 PM PDT, October 28, 2008

John McCain's presidential campaign today accused the Los Angeles Times of "intentionally suppressing" a videotape it obtained of a 2003 banquet where then-state Sen. Barack Obama spoke of his friendship with Rashid Khalidi, a leading Palestinian scholar and activist. The Times first reported on the videotape in an April 2008 story about Obama's ties with Palestinians and Jews as he navigated the politics of Chicago.

The report included a detailed description of the tape, but the newspaper did not make the video public.

Allies of Palestinians see a friend in Barack Obama
"A major news organization is intentionally suppressing information that could provide a clearer link between Barack Obama and Rashid Khalidi," said McCain campaign spokesman Michael Goldfarb. " . . . The election is one week away, and it's unfortunate that the press so obviously favors Barack Obama that this campaign must publicly request that the Los Angeles Times do its job -- make information public."

The Times today issued a statement about its decision not to post the tape.

"The Los Angeles Times did not publish the videotape because it was provided to us by a confidential source who did so on the condition that we not release it," said the newspaper's editor, Russ Stanton. "The Times keeps its promises to sources."

The original story can be viewed here.


The link cited at the end of the story is: http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-obamamideast10apr10,0,5826085.story

[DoubleEdgeSword]

Pssst. I've seen video of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands and hanging around with Saddam Hussein. Yeah, the guy's dead now, but still...

[Murrican]

But it still hurt Rumsfeld a lot and gave critics a lot to crow about.

The question here appears to be who else was there and the warmth with which Obama spoke about the PLO guy. It's like Keating and McCain. He took a beating for that.

And it may tip the undecideds who have somehow so far resisted the impressive Obama full-court press.

[DoubleEdgeSword]

For me, this is the relevant graph:

"The Los Angeles Times did not publish the videotape because it was provided to us by a confidential source who did so on the condition that we not release it," said the newspaper's editor, Russ Stanton. "The Times keeps its promises to sources."

[DoubleEdgeSword]

But it still hurt Rumsfeld a lot and gave critics a lot to crow about.

The question here appears to be who else was there and the warmth with which Obama spoke about the PLO guy. It's like Keating and McCain. He took a beating for that.

And it may tip the undecideds who have somehow so far resisted the impressive Obama full-court press.


The Keating Five incident was quite different. Sen. McCain took a beating, as he should have. He was investigated, and ultimately his poor judgement for meeting with federal regulators on Keating's behalf was, in McCain's words, "...wrong. It's a wrong appearance when a group of senators appear in a meeting with a group of regulators, because it conveys the impression of undue and improper influence. And it was the wrong thing to do."

http://www.azcentral.com/news/election/mccain/articles/2007/03/01/20070301mccainbio-chapter7.html

So, are you advocating a smear campaign of vague guilt by association? If there is some kind of connection that would seriously threaten the national security of the United States, then I'm all for a full blown investigation, by the press and if necessary, by Congress. But to just toss out some innuendo of guilt, some whisper of collusion between Sen. Obama and a person who might have been a PLO spokesman years before is irresponsible and disingenuous.

[Murrican]

So, are you advocating a smear campaign of vague guilt by association? If there is some kind of connection that would seriously threaten the national security of the United States, then I'm all for a full blown investigation, by the press and if necessary, by Congress. But to just toss out some innuendo of guilt, some whisper of collusion between Sen. Obama and a person who might have been a PLO spokesman years before is irresponsible and disingenuous.

No. But a pattern of questionable association is eyebrow-raising at the very least: Wright (whom he publicly said he wouldn't disavow, then publicly disavowed), Ayers (first a guy in the neighbourhood and then it turns out was somebody he associated very closely on boards, at events and politically, whose wife worked with his wife), Khalidi (whose send-off he attended with Ayers, reportedly, and who he toasted warmly according to April LA Times article, and the video of which is now being repressed by the LA Times, which has endorsed him), and campaign financier and convicted felon Tony Rezko and his creative real estate efforts on Obama's behalf (as originally revealed by Hillary Clinton in the primaries).

In contrast, no argument with your reporting about Keating and McCain's open mea culpa.

It's not vague guilt by association, it's close friendship, spiritual advisor, political godfather, fundraisers, etc. and getting him to come clean on any of these associations has been like peeling an onion. And all 4 relationships reveal big holes in his multiple autobiographies...

The LA Times reported in April that "A special tribute came from Khalidi's friend and frequent dinner companion, the young state Sen. Barack Obama." And "Speaking to the crowd, Obama reminisced about meals prepared by Khalidi's wife, Mona, and conversations that had challenged his thinking. His many talks with the Khalidis, Obama said, had been "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases. . . . It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation -- a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table," but around "this entire world."

see: http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-obamamideast10apr10,0,5826085.story

So if this doesn't matter, why is the not-newsworthy video tape of the event being suppressed?

truncated due to length; rest in post below... which has been blocked for now...

[Murrican]

continued from above...

"Friend and frequent dinner companion" suggests they're closer than I am to my next-door neighbours. If PT-109 and his Catholicism were important for JFK's run, then why isn't this?

Maybe because the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse (i.e. Wright, Ayers, Khalidi and Rezko, radicals all) are all there? We don't know. In a vacuum, filled only by the article cited above, with a wealth of detail, we can only guess. Let's see it, then we'll know. Otherwise this may have legs. Reporting and speculation about it are all over the media and internet already. Are we to stifle ourselves?

That said, I have looked and found no smoking gun on the imputed Khalidi/PLO connection, only innuendo.

This gets at how Khalidi must feel about it: ttp://electronicintifada.net/v2/article718.shtml

This looks at the controversy from the Spring, and tries to set the record straight:
Klein's story goes something like this: Obama sat on the board of a foundation in Chicago that gave a grant to the Arab American Action Network (AAAN), run by Khalidi's wife, which supposedly rejects Israel's existence; and Khalidi directed the PLO's Beirut press office and is a supporter "for Palestinian terror." (In fact, the AAAN focuses solely on social service work in Chicago and takes no position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Khalidi says he was never employed by the PLO; he has been a harsh critic of Palestinian suicide bombings and a longtime supporter of a two-state solution, and he has never been an adviser to Obama. As for Obama's past statements, at least in Chicago, being pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian is not a contradiction in terms.)

from: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/14/opinion/main3938453.shtml

If this is true, why is the video being suppressed? Or is it being suppressed?

There is much innuendo about Khalidi on the internet, that is for sure. And 151,000 hits when you google his name. Suggestions that Princeton decided not to hire him due to "controversy" and that "he has stirred the pot" since arriving at Columbia.

So, why doesn't Barack Obama admit what anybody can plainly see, this guy has long been controversial, not just in 2008? We know why, of course. Because of the taint. So the solution is stonewalling.

Will it work?

[DoubleEdgeSword]

The tape has not been released because the L.A. Times doesn't give up its sources. As a "journalist," I would think you would understand that.

As to the rest of your charges, I'm satisfied with the Senator's explanations. If you are not, too bad for you.

[Incident]

For me, this is the relevant graph:"The Los Angeles Times did not publish the videotape because it was provided to us by a confidential source who did so on the condition that we not release it," said the newspaper's editor, Russ Stanton. "The Times keeps its promises to sources."

So it wouldn't matter to you even if Obama was on the tape spelling out his planned second Holocaust of the Jews and those that support them. Because they made a promise to a source to spike the news.

[DoubleEdgeSword]

So it wouldn't matter to you even if Obama was on the tape spelling out his planned second Holocaust of the Jews and those that support them. Because they made a promise to a source to spike the news.

I reject your premise that the L.A. Times "spiked" anything. But to answer your question, I believe a news organization should protect its sources. A news organization that doesn't won't have good sources.

[db44]

Too bad McCain has a financial stake in Mr. Khalidi, eh?

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/29/mccain-pushes-obama-connection-to-khalidi/

Khalidi himself said in an e-mailed statement that he was “not speaking to the media at this time, and certainly not until this idiot wind passes.” He also directed reporters to a post on the Harper’s magazine Web site that he said “has some details re a few of the stupider, and more ignorant things said about me.”

Obama was asked about his relationship with Khalidi in May at a town hall with Jewish voters.
“I do know him because I taught at the University of Chicago,” Obama said. “And he is a Palestinian. And I do know him and I have had conversations. He is not one of my advisors; he’s not one of my foreign policy people. His kids went to the Lab school where my kids go as well. He is a respected scholar, although he vehemently disagrees with a lot of Israel’s policy.”

“To pluck out one person who I know and who I’ve had a conversation with who has very different views than 900 of my friends and then to suggest that somehow that shows that maybe I’m not sufficiently pro-Israel, I think, is a very problematic stand to take,” Obama said. “so we got to be careful about guilt by association.”

And while McCain might not have known Khalidi personally, he has ties to the Palestinian as well. During the 1990s, while McCain served as chairman of the International Republican Institute, the group gave grant money to the Palestinian research center co-founded by Khalidi.

Florida, with its 27 electoral votes, is a crucial battleground for McCain. Jewish voters comprise 5 percent of the electorate in the state.

[DoubleEdgeSword]

Both charges are manufactured to stir up the electorate. Move on, people. This election is way too important to waste time with this nonsense. Idiot wind, indeed.