McCain Funded Palestinian Khalidi.

[korbel]

Hello all,

I was looking for this yesterday and could not find it. Today..bingo! The latest demagoguery by the McCain Campaign has Senator Obama toasting a Palestinian named Rashid Khalidi at a banquet. Khalidi has been accused of being in support of Palestinian terrorists. Well, it seems Senator McCainhas forgotten his own association with Khalidi. Read for yourself:

McCain Funded Work Of Palestinian His Campaign Hopes To Tie To Obama

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/28/mccain-funded-work-of-pal_n_138606.html

The latest guilt-by-association target that the McCain campaign is using to hit Barack Obama could carry some collateral damage for its own candidate.As Politico's Ben Smith reported on Tuesday, the McCain campaign is demanding that the Los Angeles Times release video in its possession of a party attended by Barack Obama and Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi.

"A major news organization is intentionally suppressing information that could provide a clearer link between Barack Obama and Rashid Khalidi," said McCain spokesman Michael Goldfarb, citing Obama's friendship with Khalidi, who is now a professor at Columbia University.​

The McCain camp gambit comes after conservative writers have repeatedly pressed for media outlets to write about the rather tenuous connections between Obama and Khalidi, an outspoken advocate for Palestinian rights.Specifically, National Review writers want much more attention paid to the association, given that the LA Times has reported that Khalidi lavished praise on Obama at a farewell party in Chicago at which Bill Ayers was also present. (Other writers have accused Khalidi of being an aide to Yasser Arafat, a claim which Marc Ambinder and Ari Berman have suggested is not credible.)

In regards to Khalidi, however, the guilt-by-association game burns John McCain as well.


During the 1990s, while he served as chairman of the International Republican Institute (IRI), McCain distributed several grants to the Palestinian research center co-founded by Khalidi, including one worth half a million dollars.

A 1998 tax filing for the McCain-led group shows a $448,873 grant to Khalidi's Center for Palestine Research and Studies for work in the West Bank. (See grant number 5180, "West Bank: CPRS" on page 14 of this PDF.) The relationship extends back as far as 1993, when John McCain joined IRI as chairman in January. Foreign Affairs noted in September of that year that IRI had helped fund several extensive studies in Palestine run by Khalidi's group, including over 30 public opinion polls and a study of "sociopolitical attitudes."

Of course, there's seemingly nothing objectionable with McCain's organization helping a Palestinian group conduct research in the West Bank or Gaza. But it does suggest that McCain could have some of his own explaining to do as he tries to make hay out of Khalidi's ties to Obama.

Enjoy,

Korbel

 

[korbel]

Another source:


Republicans including McCain funded Khalidi.

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977492005&nav=Explore#comments

First as an aside, how many terrorists according to McCain/Palin do we have teaching young Americans? It seems that everyone Obama met through academia is a terrorist. Clue number one on how phony these allegations are.Harpers writer Scott Horton had today rebutted the stupid and outrageous claims about the former University of Chicago and current Columbia University professor.

Of course, Khalidi has been involved in Palestinian causes. [National Review writer 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.

I have a suggestion for Andy McCarthy and his Hyde Park project. If he really digs down deep enough, he will come up with a Hyde Park figure who stood in constant close contact with Barack Obama and who, unlike Ayers and Khalidi, really did influence Obama's thinking about law, government, and policy. He is to my way of thinking a genuine radical. His name is Richard Posner, and he appears to be the most frequently and positively cited judge and legal academic in... National Review.
​

There you have it. I've checked the organizations the author talked about. McCain was chair there and their goals were as stated by the author. Khalidi has been living freely in this country, is a professor at Columbia University, one of the finest institution in the Universe. The organization once chaired by McCain funded Khalidi to promote democracy in the West Bank.

Now McCain wants a tape showing Obama at Khalidi's going away party.
Can you believe these people?

Oh, Richard Posner. Check him out. This Obama dude really likes free thinkers from both sides of the aisle. This right wing Posner is some character.

During the 1990s, while he served as chairman of the International Republican Institute (IRI), McCain distributed several grants to the Palestinian research center co-founded by Khalidi, including one worth half a million dollars.
A 1998 tax filing for the McCain-led group shows a $448,873 grant to Khalidi's Center for Palestine Research and Studies for work in the West Bank. (See grant number 5180, "West Bank: CPRS" on page 14 of this PDF.)
The relationship extends back as far as 1993, when John McCain joined IRI as chairman in January. Foreign Affairs noted in September of that year that IRI had helped fund several extensive studies in Palestine run by Khalidi's group, including over 30 public opinion polls and a study of "sociopolitical attitudes."
​

Not criticizing or supporting Khalidi. Whatever he is McCain supported him. The hypocrisy!!!

So a person and organization McCain helped fund to promote "civic consciousness and engagement and the development of democratic values in the West Bank" is the same man and organization McCain now sees as a very questionable association of Barack Obama's past.

INCREDIBLE!!!

Korbel

 

[mass1965]

I had some respect for McCain at one point but after what I have seen in his campaign and what I have recently learned about him, I do not have any now. He came from privileged background, which he has used to cover himself from problems and advance his career. As far as I can see he has wasted the advantages he had and has shown an unwillingness to work hard and take resposibilty for his mistakes. Bush also came from a privileged background. McCain and Bush are very much alike. Possibly McCain is worse.

 

[korbel]

I had some respect for McCain at one point but after what I have seen in his campaign and what I have recently learned about him, I do not have any now. He came from privileged background, which he has used to cover himself from problems and advance his career. As far as I can see he has wasted the advantages he had and has shown an unwillingness to work hard and take resposibilty for his mistakes. Bush also came from a privileged background. McCain and Bush are very much alike. Possibly McCain is worse.

Hello Mass1965,

It's hard to believe now that back in the spring I wasn't very interested in the Presidential campaigns because I thought that whether it's Clinton, Obama, or McCain, they are all pretty acceptable to me. I had long thought highly of McCain as the one Republican I could consider really voting for. But I worried about one thing concerning him, and that was the most active element of the Republican Party, the Conservatives. I wondered if McCain would really be his own man, or end up being so beholden to the Conservatives that there would be no real change from the Bush administration. I also wondered if the campaign would make him so politically strident and demagoguic that I would be repulsed. Well, both happened. He has become a desperate man promoting fear who now owes his political fate to the turn out of arch-Conservatives, and so beholden to them that he will find it impossible to be the "Maverick" McCain that had seemed so unique and commendable, but has now become a farce.

Very sad,

Korbel

 

[mass1965]

Hello Mass1965,

It's hard to believe now that back in the spring I wasn't very interested in the Presidential campaigns because I thought that whether it's Clinton, Obama, or McCain, they are all pretty acceptable to me. I had long thought highly of McCain as the one Republican I could consider really voting for. But I worried about one thing concerning him, and that was the most active element of the Republican Party, the Conservatives. I wondered if McCain would really be his own man, or end up being so beholden to the Conservatives that there would be no real change from the Bush administration. I also wondered if the campaign would make him so politically strident and demagoguic that I would be repulsed. Well, both happened. He has become a desperate man promoting fear who now owes his political fate to the turn out of arch-Conservatives, and so beholden to them that he will find it impossible to be the "Maverick" McCain that had seemed so unique and commendable, but has now become a farce.

Very sad,

Korbel

Agreed, but also in my mind is that competency is more important that ideology. Many other much more astute people than I seem to agree and think Obama is clearly more capable.
If you look at someones university background you can find what that persons ability to learn and willingness to learn (work hard) is. So McCain was a D student graduating 3rd from the bottom of his class at the Naval acadamy but Obama on the other hand graduated at the top of his class from Columbia and the also at the top of his class from Harvard Law school plus was President of the Harvard Law Review. Just no comparison from that point of view.