Bill Ayers isn’t the only guy from the neighborhood giving headaches to the Obama campaign. Winning the award for the underreported story of the season is Obama’s longtime friendship and glowing accolades given at a going away party for Rashid Khalidi in 2003.
Who’s Rashid Khalidi? His resume is lengthy. Columbia University Professor (you know, the one that gave Achmadinejad a platform to speak a couple years ago), Director of the MEI (Middle East Institute) at Columbia where he presides over a $300,000 annual grant from the federal government, board member , trustee, adviser and yakkety-yak of countless pro-Palestine organizations (I resent the fact that Microsoft works assumes I want to capitalize Palestine… and Microsoft). He’s basically the go-to scholar for anti-Israel, elites the world over. But here’s the shining star in his resume, while a professor in Beirut in the 70s he often spoke to reporters on behalf of Yasser Arafat, to whom his 1986 book was dedicated. Yes, he was the press secretary of a recognized terrorist group (PLO). That was before he was just another guy in Barack Obama’s neighborhood.
On April 10, 2008 the LA Times published an article entitled Allies of Palestinians see a friend in Barack Obama. The LA Times claims to have a video of Obama paying tribute to Khalidi at a farewell dinner before he left for his new job at Columbia. He reminisces about his many talks with Khalidi, where Obama said these talks served as, “consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases… It’s for that reason that I’m hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation. The article also claims the Khalidi’s hosted a 2000 fundraiser for Obama.
Maybe it was a block party because Bill Ayers is said to have paid tribute to Khalidi as well. The McCain campaign released a statement today requesting the tape be released. The LA Times claims they are refusing to release the tape because it was “provided by a confidential source who did so on the condition that we not release it.” Fine. If you don’t protect your sources you won’t have many sources.
The point is this. Obama isn’t from Chicago. He moved to Chicago for the exact purpose of launching a political career. In one of his 842 memoirs he states that he chose his friends carefully. Yet, when the opposition takes a closer look at his choice in friends we’re grasping at straws. (Speaking of straws, I’ve never once mentioned Obama’s admitted cocaine use… oops). We’re big meanies panicking at impending defeat.
I’m panicking alright. I’m panicking because if the polls are correct we are about to elect an Anti-Israel, Socialist loving, inexperienced, yahoo with a messiah complex. The economy, terrorism, a war with victory in sight, taxes, his unthinkable stance on the Born Alive Act, the White Sox. He’s in far out cuckoo town on… everything. America is facing huge challenges and this is no time to be playing games and high time TO panic.