In a classic example of the pot calling the kettle black, then burning the tea water, the McCain campaign has decided to attack Barack Obama for attending a going away party for New York native and University of Chicago professor Rashid Khalidi.
Ben Smith at Politico.com who posted the first story to come to our community's attention, has been busy as of late pushing this story under the guise of "a records release" issue between the McCain Camp and the LA Times. But at least Ben Smith has begun to show both sides of the story. The same can not be said for Andrew McCarthy National Review.
Not long after the initial story came to the attention of the political echo chamber, Seth Colter Walls at Huffington Post quickly exposed McCain's own connections to Rashid Khalidi. A connection that, if you were to see such things as a McCain supporter, goes well beyond a rubbing of elbows, which is the allegation purported to be highlighted in the "party video". The McCain/Khalidi connection involves close to $800,000 given to a Palestinian Organization by a group headed by one John McCain.
In McPalin circles, that would be called funding terrorism.
Well, today, the Professor and Historian has a defender, Scott Horton of Harpers Magazine.
Here is a bit of what he had to say.
Excerpts from:
"The New McCarthyism"
By By Scott Horton
Harpers Magazine
In the current issue of National Review, Andrew McCarthy continues his campaign to link the Democratic nominee to various and sundry Hyde Park radicals. This time it is "PLO advisor turned University of Chicago professor Rashid Khalidi," who now heads the Middle Eastern Studies Department at Columbia University. Khalidi, we learn, makes a habit of justifying and supporting the work of terrorists and is "a former mouthpiece for master terrorist Yasser Arafat." And then we learn that this same Khalidi knows Obama and that his children even babysat for Obama’s kids!
This doesn’t sound much like the Rashid Khalidi I know. I’ve followed his career for many years, read his articles and books, listened to his presentations, and engaged him in discussions of politics, the arts, and history. In fact, as McCarthy’s piece ran, I was midway through an advance copy of Khalidi’s new book Sowing Crisis: The Cold War and American Dominance in the Middle East. (I’ll be reviewing it next month–stay tuned.) Rashid Khalidi is an American academic of extraordinary ability and sharp insights. He is also deeply committed to stemming violence in the Middle East, promoting a culture that embraces human rights as a fundamental notion, and building democratic societies. In a sense, Khalidi’s formula for solving the Middle East crisis has not been radically different from George W. Bush’s: both believe in American values and approaches. However, whereas Bush believes these values can be introduced in the wake of bombs and at the barrel of a gun, Khalidi disagrees. He sees education and civic activism as the path to success, and he argues that pervasive military interventionism has historically undermined the Middle East and will continue to do so. Khalidi has also been one of the most articulate critics of the PLO and the Palestinian Authority—calling them repeatedly on their anti-democratic tendencies and their betrayals of their own principles. Khalidi is also a Palestinian American. There is no doubt in my mind that it is solely that last fact that informs McCarthy’s ignorant and malicious rants.
You can read more here
This man, Rashid Khalidi, an American citizen, born in New York, and educated at Oxford and Yale, seems to be the latest target of the McCain campaign's "ready, fire, aim" smear tactics that risk our country's ability to stand together as a nation. This is race baiting in the guise of nationalism. I thought we called that xenophobia?
The longer McCain plays these dangerous games, the greater the risk of violence on Election Day. But beyond this, the more we are seen as a xenophobic nation to the rest of the world, the bigger the target grows on our nation.
This type of "America v. Anti-America" hate speech does nothing but drag us down the slippery slope of civil conflict. And when a nation is in such disarray, it is left weakened and open to infiltration from outside entities.
Entities like THIS!