The McCain/Palin campaign (or is it the Palin/McCain campaign?), with five day left till the Presidential election, is beginning to pull out all the stops in order to win at whatever cost to America as a whole. The GOP didn't get quite as much poll traction as they had hoped from the William Ayers/ "Obama palls around with terrorists" fear mongering, so they are now going for another past association in the hope that Jews will turn their back on Obama.
Rashid Khalidi is a widely respected, if controversial, Palestinian-American Middle East scholar who founded the Center for Palestine Research and Studies as well as numerous academic panels and news outlets. He is an author, a teacher, an adviser, a journalist, and geo-political expert. He has also been erroneously linked to the PLO as their "spokesperson" or "figurehead" because of his reporting for WAFA in the late '70's and his participation in the Madrid Conference in 1991.
John McCain is now taking that false claim and running with it, claiming that Khalidi is another terrorist and extremist with whom Barack Obama has a close relationship. Sara Palin, at a rally in Ohio yesterday, called Khalidi a "radical professor" and Obama's "political ally," all while sneering his name and generally attempting to whip her crowd into yet another hate-fest.
As I have stated before in these pages, I hate hypocrisy. Fear mongering at the cost of truth runs a close second. Put the two together and I run a fever. Thus, I feel it is necessary to shine a little light onto the bullshit that is McCain's new attack on Barack Obama.
Before you claim that I am a partisan hack with a hard on for the Democratic ticket, please let me say, my distaste for political hypocrisy knows no party boundary. Should a democrat or an independent say or do something monumentally stupid or nefarious, I'll be there to illuminate it and deconstruct it as well. Don't worry.
In 2003, when Rashid Khalidi was leaving his position as Middle East professor at the University of Chicago, Barack Obama attended his farewell dinner. He had some nice things to day about the academic who was leaving the city for Columbia University. This is fact.
Another fact? While John McCain was chairman of the International Republican Institute (IRI) in the 1990's, the IRI granted more than $500,000 to Khalidi's Center for Palestine Research and Studies to fund studies in the area. You can read details of the transactions in Michael Tomasky's Guardian article.
I repeat. John McCain and the International Republican Institute gave money to Rashid Khalidi. If Khalidi is such a terrorist and radical, why would John McCain give his research group American money?
The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is one of the most heinous and recalcitrant geo-political messes currently on the books. Any and all light thrown on its causes, reinforcements, and realities is money well spent. This is not only research but due diligence. As a Jew, I think all measures taken to encourage diplomacy and understanding should be employed. The issue is not black and white and to treat it as such is irresponsible.
To turn around and use Rashid Khalidi as yet another tool to cast suspicion on Barack Obama is first class hypocrisy and it sits about as well with me as a day old oyster. The depth to which the McCain/Palin campaign is now stooping is right up there with what Rove and Eskew did to John McCain himself in the Republican Primary of 2000 (it's notable that the GOP ticket now employs Tucker Eskew). These actions do not speak well of Senator McCain and are an embarrassment to the political process.
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