Ran into this great piece at the Wonky Muse about the connection of John McCain and Khalidi. Sarah Palin is trying so hard to throw John McCain under the Palin 2012 bus.
Anyway the article is after the fold.
Sarah Palin again attacked Barack Obama, this from CNN from a rally at Bowling Green Ohio.
Gov. Sarah Palin on Wednesday said Sen. Barack Obama has ties to a Columbia University professor who she said is "a former spokesperson for the Palestinian Liberation Organization."
"It seems that there is yet another radical professor from the neighborhood who spent a lot of time with Barack Obama going back several years," Palin said at an event in Bowling Green, Ohio.
"This is important because his associate, Rashid Khalidi ... in addition to being a political ally of Barack Obama, he's a former spokesperson for the Palestinian Liberation Organization."
Rashid Khalidi is a professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Columbia and was on the faculty of the University of Chicago when Obama taught there. The campus is not huge and they knew each other. He is an outspoken critic of the foreign policy of the US in regards to Israel and Palestine. As both an intellectual and a critic, I can see Obama curious about his opinions. Unlike John McCain and Sarah Palin, Obama has an open mind to differing opinions.
In a great blog from the Wonky Muse, he links to the "New McCarthyism" by Scott Harper which points out:
Of course, Khalidi has been involved in Palestinian causes. (Andrew) McCarthy ought to ask John McCain about that, because McCain and Khalidi appear to have some joint interests, and that fact speaks very well of both of them. Indeed, the McCain–Khalidi connections are more substantial than the phony Obama–Khalidi connections McCarthy gussies up for his article. The Republican party’s congressionally funded international-networking organization, the International Republican Institute–long and ably chaired by John McCain and headed by McCain’s close friend, the capable Lorne Craner–has taken an interest in West Bank matters. IRI funded an ambitious project, called the Palestine Center, that Khalidi helped to support. Khalidi served on the Center’s board of directors. The goal of that project, shared by Khalidi and McCain, was the promotion of civic consciousness and engagement and the development of democratic values in the West Bank. Of course, McCarthy is not interested in looking too closely into the facts, because they would not serve his shrill partisan objectives.
The blog for the Wonky Muse is here. Both blogs are very well written and interesting.
So then why does Sarah Palin keep bringing this up? First, I think it is sensational, unfounded, but sensational. The rabble at her rallies eat this up. I think it also indicates she knows they have lost and she is throwing John McCain under her 2012 Presidential bus. She seems to have a habit of climbing in high heels over the backs of her mentors and supporters to get above them at any cost. This is just another example at a national level