Inside Politics

Suppressed tape

“Why is the Los Angeles Times sitting on a videotape of the 2003 farewell bash in Chicago at which Barack Obama lavished praise on the guest of honor, Rashid Khalidi — former mouthpiece for master terrorist Yasser Arafat?” Andrew C. McCarthy asks at National Review Online (www.nationalreview.com).

“At the time Khalidi, a PLO adviser turned University of Chicago professor, was headed east to Columbia. There he would take over the University’s Middle East-studies program (which he has since maintained as a bubbling cauldron of anti-Semitism) and assume the professorship endowed in honor of Edward Said, another notorious terror apologist,” Mr. McCarthy said.

“The party featured encomiums by many of Khalidi’s allies, colleagues and friends, including Barack Obama, then an Illinois state senator, and Bill Ayers, the terrorist turned education professor. It was sponsored by the Arab American Action Network (AAAN), which had been founded by Khalidi and his wife, Mona, formerly a top English translator for Arafat’s press agency.

“Is there just a teeny-weenie chance that this was an evening of Israel-bashing Obama would find very difficult to explain? Could it be that the Times, a pillar of the Obamedia, is covering for its guy?

“Gateway Pundit reports that the Times has the videotape but is suppressing it.”

Not a diplomat

Lawrence Wilkerson, who was chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell in President Bush’s first term, has some rather undiplomatic things to say about Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign and about conservatives in an interview posted at Foreign Policy magazine’s Web site (www.foreignpolicy.com).

When asked for his take “on the tone of the campaign,” Mr. Wilkerson replied: “I was fully expecting the grand wizard of the Klu Klux Klan to arrive from Maryland and endorse McCain. I was becoming frightened that we were returning to 1968, when they assassinated Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Those were bad times.”

Mr. Wilkerson, who calls himself a Republican, said he was “ecstatic” that Mr. Powell endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for president. He also had this to say about Mr. McCain: “One of the most dramatic moments for me was when I was watching McCain on television, and I thought I saw in McCain’s eyes himself, when someone yelled something out, a recognition of, ‘Oh, God, what have I done?’

“This is not McCain; he doesn’t cater to this. But for the first time in his political life, I think he realized that there are some strange people in the Republican tent. My father used to say, ‘Larry, beware of the left, because they will bankrupt you; beware of the right, because they will kill you.’ ”

Those undecideds

“As Election Day draws near, people are wondering if the presidential race will tighten. Will the undecideds swing to McCain, or will Obama continue to maintain his 4 to 11 point lead?” Arnon A. Mishkin writes at www.weeklystandard.com.

“Some point to a ‘Bradley effect’ suggesting that voters are hiding their true feelings from pollsters because of Obama’s race, while others say the Bradley effect either never existed or no longer exists. People who think there is a Bradley effect believe that the substantial majority of undecideds are likely to vote for McCain, enabling him to close some of the gap,” Mr. Mishkin said.

“McCain should win a larger share of undecided voters than Obama, but it has little to do with race.

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