How Many Special Tributes Do You Do for “Just a Guy in the Hood?”

Below is video of Obama being questioned by a Jewish man at an event in Florida about Rashad Khalidi. Obama basically said Khalidi is just a guy in the ‘hood, (you know, just like he did with Ayers). “A professor in Chicago, whose kids went to school with my kids.”

“He is not one of my advisers. He’s not one of my foreign policy people,” Obama said at a campaign event in May. “He is a respected scholar, although he vehemently disagrees with a lot of Israel’s policy.”

That is not true. In fact, Obama and Khalidi were close friends and their families frequently ate together and shared intimate moments. Michelle, for example, attended a wedding limited largely to family at the Khalidis.

“Khalidi was a frequent dinner guest at the Obama’s home and at his farewell dinner in 2003 Obama joined the unrepentant terrorist William Ayers in giving testimonials on Khalidi’s role in the community.” Based on an article Peter Wallsten wrote in April, someone finally put two and two together, and we now know that the Times is actually sitting on the video that they used to write this article.

So…why would the Times write this piece, then endorse Obama, and then put this tape in a *lockbox*? Perhaps this was a preemptive article, trying to sugar coat the ties between Obama and Khalidi, in case jouranlists actually ever did their job, and really looked into the story. Or perhaps Peter Wallsten was doing his job, and trying to expose this relationship. So, if his article is so accurate, why are they hiding the tape? hmmm

But it is weird that the Times wrote a story about this, and are now claiming they can’t release the tape, because they are protecting the source of the tape. I figure the tape either has to be really bad for Obama, and they were writing a fluff preemptive piece in case the tape ever came out. Or, the writer is now being pressured by the paper to cover it up (since they endorsed him, and all).

Either way, I don’t see how NOT releasing the tape is protecting a source. If someone gave them the tape, they can be protected by not revealing their name. But is covering up the content of the tape protecting a source? (“here mr. newspaper man, watch this tape, and write an article about it, but don’t ever show the tape”?? why?)

So, that begs the question: who would have given the writer the tape? It doesn’t make sense that someone opposed to Obama would have done it, and then insist that the tape not be released. They would want the tape out, no? So, is it someone pro-Obama who gave the tape to LA Times, so they could do a *CYA* piece for Obama, and they made the paper promise they would never release it, because it is baaaaaaad for Obama? The *source* gave the tape to Wallsten, and he was allowed to write an article about it. So, why the big secret on the content of the tape? However, the writer does make some rather potentially dangerous observations in the article. :OS

Based on my deductive reasoning (haha), it would seem to me that the LA Times is, pure and simple, covering this up for Obama. I don’t believe they are covering for any source. I think they are just in *puppy love* with Obama, and they won’t do anything to harm *that one*. I think the writer wrote his piece, and now he is pressured to stay quiet from the paper.

That makes the most sense to me… Oh hell I don’t know! I can’t figure it out. haha

All I know is Obama lied about the extent of their relationship, which is a pattern with him. And the tape should be released. SHOW ME THE MONEY!

Here is the original article, with some snipits below.

It was a celebration of Palestinian culture — a night of music, dancing and a dash of politics. Local Arab Americans were bidding farewell to Rashid Khalidi, an internationally known scholar, critic of Israel and advocate for Palestinian rights, who was leaving town for a job in New York.

A special tribute came from Khalidi’s friend and frequent dinner companion, the young state Sen. Barack Obama. Speaking to the crowd, Obama reminisced about meals prepared by Khalidi’s wife, Mona, and conversations that had challenged his thinking.

His many talks with the Khalidis, Obama said, had been “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 — a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid’s dinner table,” but around “this entire world.”

And yet the warm embrace Obama gave to Khalidi, and words like those at the professor’s going-away party, have left some Palestinian American leaders believing that Obama is more receptive to their viewpoint than he is willing to say.

Their belief is not drawn from Obama’s speeches or campaign literature, but from comments that some say Obama made in private and from his association with the Palestinian American community in his hometown of Chicago, including his presence at events where anger at Israeli and U.S. Middle East policy was freely expressed.

At Khalidi’s 2003 farewell party, for example, a young Palestinian American recited a poem accusing the Israeli government of terrorism in its treatment of Palestinians and sharply criticizing U.S. support of Israel. If Palestinians cannot secure their own land, she said, “then you will never see a day of peace.”

One speaker likened “Zionist settlers on the West Bank” to Osama bin Laden, saying both had been “blinded by ideology.”

…

Last year, for example, Obama was quoted saying that “nobody’s suffering more than the Palestinian people.” The candidate later said the remark had been taken out of context, and that he meant that the Palestinians were suffering “from the failure of the Palestinian leadership [in Gaza] to recognize Israel” and to renounce violence.

…

Among other community events, Obama in 1998 attended a speech by Edward Said, the late Columbia University professor and a leading intellectual in the Palestinian movement. According to a news account of the speech, Said called that day for a nonviolent campaign “against settlements, against Israeli apartheid.”

The use of such language to describe Israel’s policies has drawn vehement objection from Israel’s defenders in the United States. A photo on the pro-Palestinian website the Electronic Intifada shows Obama and his wife, Michelle, engaged in conversation at the dinner table with Said, and later listening to Said’s keynote address. Obama had taken an English class from Said as an undergraduate at Columbia University.

Ali Abunimah, a Palestinian rights activist in Chicago who helps run Electronic Intifada, said that he met Obama several times at Palestinian and Arab American community events. At one, a 2000 fundraiser at a private home, Obama called for the U.S. to take an “even-handed” approach toward Israel, Abunimah wrote in an article on the website last year. He did not cite Obama’s specific criticisms.

Abunimah, in a Times interview and on his website, said Obama seemed sympathetic to the Palestinian cause but more circumspect as he ran for the U.S. Senate in 2004. At a dinner gathering that year, Abunimah said, Obama greeted him warmly and said privately that he needed to speak cautiously about the Middle East.

Abunimah quoted Obama as saying that he was sorry he wasn’t talking more about the Palestinian cause, but that his primary campaign had constrained what he could say.

…

While teaching at the University of Chicago, Khalidi and his wife lived in the Hyde Park neighborhood near the Obamas. The families became friends and dinner companions.

In 2000, the Khalidis held a fundraiser for Obama’s unsuccessful congressional bid. The next year, a social service group whose board was headed by Mona Khalidi received a $40,000 grant from a local charity, the Woods Fund of Chicago, when Obama served on the fund’s board of directors.

At Khalidi’s going-away party in 2003, the scholar lavished praise on Obama, telling the mostly Palestinian American crowd that the state senator deserved their help in winning a U.S. Senate seat. “You will not have a better senator under any circumstances,” Khalidi said.

The event was videotaped, and a copy of the tape was obtained by The Times.

Check out these articles about Tape Gate, from FOX and LA Times.