Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Khalidi tape update: The LAT explains
A couple of days ago this blog and a few million others on the right kicked up a ruckus over the purported suppression by the Los Angeles Times of a video tape that showed Barack Obama at an event in honor of a fairly unpleasant Palestinian activist. I sent an email to the LAT's ombudsman complaining, and posted the link.
Well, the LAT has explained itself. Apparently it has the tape only by dint of a promise not to release it. The LAT says that it keeps the promises it makes to its sources.
My guess is that this story is not over, but it is probably over for the next week.
14 Comments:
By 
JPMcT, at
Wed Oct 29, 07:30:00 AM:
Yeah...I sure they have made a promise to Barack Obama not to release it.
Isn't it fabulous that we are getting ready to put a man in the White House who wouldn't qualitfy for the level of security clearance to park cars on Capitol Hill.
Maybe the Secret Service should have a look....by subpeona. As with many other things about Obama...what's he hiding???
By smitty1e, at
Wed Oct 29, 07:33:00 AM:
Prediction: attempt at stemming the tide actually makes the story take on greater weight than if the tape itself were released.
By 
, at
Wed Oct 29, 09:59:00 AM:
I can understand that. It's like the NYT printing the launch codes on the front page and then refusing to say where it got them, because of a promise to a source. The LAT would do exactly the same with a tape of Bush chugging a beer if it had promised the source not to release it.
By , at
Wed Oct 29, 01:09:00 PM:
This is a game of Dodgeball. Team Purple Cobra just soft-tossed to the good guys, Joe's Average Gym, and now it's time for Steve the Pirate to wheel one off White Goodman's noggin.
Release the tape!!
By JPMcT, at
Wed Oct 29, 01:11:00 PM:
Yes...that time honored principle of the great American print media...TREASON.
By Mrs. Davis, at
Wed Oct 29, 02:00:00 PM:
And now McCain is demanding the release of the tape.
What can possibly be on the tape that is so bad it is worth giving ammunition to McCain make it the topic of conversation for the next week?
By rleavengood, at
Wed Oct 29, 04:27:00 PM:
That's hilarious, a source had a video of the event and passes it on to a major media outlet, on the condition that they don't release it. Why give it to LAT in the first place.
Just crazy
By , at
Wed Oct 29, 05:29:00 PM:
Sorry- should have posted this here.
As predicted earlier in this thread, the coverup is starting to become the story as suppositions about the tape get a little wild, and money gets slapped on the table.
By , at
Wed Oct 29, 11:08:00 PM:
Gee, TH. All this time and ink devoted to uncovering Obama's relationship with Khalidi, and not word one about the fact that in the 1990's the Int'l Republican Institute, of which McCain served as chairman, awarded Khalidi--yes, the same unpleasant Palestinian activist with whom you "slimed" Obama--with several grants including one for $500K.
Hmmmm. What's worse: attending a farewell party for an unpleasanr Palestinian activist or giving him $500K?
Tsk, tsk, TH. Keep this up and you'll give Faux News a run for it's money.
By , at
Wed Oct 29, 11:10:00 PM:
And after the election, when everything slowly comes out about Obama, the 1% crazies will be justified in their belief that America has been undermined from within.
I fear a rise in militias and Timothy McVeigh types. And the media will be partly to blame because of their failure to honestly investigate Obama and Biden.
God damn America indeed.
By prsmith, at
Thu Oct 30, 12:40:00 AM:
We have a right to see that video BEFORE the election!
Please! If you live in LA or subscribe to the LA Times:
a.) Cancel your subscription - TOMORROW!
b.) Grab a paper and begin calling advertisers telling them why you cancelled.
c.) Go out and picket/protest the LA Times.
With enough financial pressure, they will release the tape.
By JPMcT, at
Thu Oct 30, 07:08:00 AM:
"Hmmmm. What's worse: attending a farewell party for an unpleasanr Palestinian activist or giving him $500K?"
@Anon 11:08
Try the facts on for size. McCain assumed charmanship of this organization in 1993. The grant was made in 1988. McCain never met Khalidi, never went to a party with Bill Ayers to honor him (after he was a PLO rep. He did, and readily admits, that the IRI funded a few opinion polls for an organization connected to Khalidi.
Anon, that's a little different than sitting in a room while somebody berates America and calls for death to Israel.
Besides, McCain's involvement in this is well known (especially by the Left wing kook sites and hostile media)and well documented.
If Obama has nothing to hide, nothing to be embarassed about, nothing he doesn't want the electorate to know....then WHY DOESN'T OBAMA CALL FOR THE VIDEO TO BE RELEASED????
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.....
By , at
Thu Oct 30, 10:58:00 AM:
For those interested in learning more about Khalidi, Martin Kramer has assembled a helpful roundup, and closes with a pertinent question for Obama, one that (heartbreakingly) will never be asked:
Obama, as to whether he knows Khalidi, "I do know him [Khalidi] because I taught at the University of Chicago [where Khalidi taught prior to his Columbia appointment—MK]. And he is 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.
Kramer, "To which I would ask the candidate in response: What aspect of his "scholarship" do you respect?
By , at
Thu Oct 30, 01:21:00 PM:
More today from Krameron this subject, and it's brilliant in tying the various threads of Chicago anti-semitic academic thought together. This is Obama's background, and these are his friends and intellectual soul mates.
Is there no way to get Americans to see this reality?
