Nice Summary of Facts on Khalidi Nonsense

[Vattel]

source: www.dailyhowler.com

Bob Somerby at Dailyhowler writes:

As you may know, McCain is demanding release of a tape—a videotape of a 2003 banquet which Obama attended. The featured guest was Rashid Khalidi, an American-born American citizen who is now a professor at Columbia. (In Shear’s slightly confusing words, Khalidi is “a leading Palestinian American scholar.”) You can read Shear’s piece for the basic info—about the banquet, and about McCain’s complaints. Along the way, you will notice these facts about McCain’s latest war-cries:

McCain has ties to Khalidi too. In Shear’s words, “a nonprofit group that McCain chaired once helped fund a polling organization founded by Khalidi.” The group “awarded a grant of $448,873 in 1998 to the Center for Palestine Research and Studies, which was co-founded by Khalidi.” In short, although McCain is now comparing Khalidi to a “neo-Nazi,” he too had generous, friendly ties to the scholar in the past.

McCain won’t stop misstating about William Ayers: As Shear notes, McCain has been claiming that William Ayers was present at the 2003 banquet. As the source for this claim, the McCain campaign cites a New York Sun report—a report which makes no such claim.

McCain and Palin seem to be making an unfounded statement about Khalidi: According to Shear, “McCain and Palin called Khalidi a spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization.” But Khalidi “has denied being a spokesman for the PLO,” Shear writes. Shear offers no further evidence about McCain/Palin’s claim.

McCain and Palin can’t stop dissembling: McCain is complaining that the Los Angeles Times won’t release the tape of the banquet—although the Times says (Shear’s words) that the tape was “provided by a source on the condition that the paper not air it.” Despite this, Palin has (Shear’s words) “openly mocked the Los Angeles Times for what she said was pandering to Obama.” According to Shear, “the audience cheered her on” yesterday as she made the following statement: "It must be nice for a candidate to have major news organizations looking out for their best interests like that." Palin said this, despite the fact that it was the Times which reported the banquet in question.