Imagine this – a major news organization has a tape of a presidential candidate making highly inflammatory – some would even argue hateful – statements about a close American ally while toasting a personal friend who was also closely tied to a terrorist organization. That’s something they would release in a heartbeat, right?

Not, however, if the news organization is the Los Angeles Times and the candidate is Barack Obama. Then they would hold on to the tape, having determined that the people have no right to know the full contents of the tape.

The Los Angeles Times is refusing to release a videotape that it says shows Barack Obama praising a Chicago professor who was an alleged mouthpiece for the Palestine Liberation Organization while it was a designated terrorist group in the 1970s and '80s.

According an LA Times article written by Peter Wallsten in April, Obama was a "friend and frequent dinner companion" of Rashid Khalidi, who from 1976 to1982 was reportedly a director of the official Palestinian press agency, WAFA, which was operating in exile from Beirut with the PLO.

In the article -- based on the videotape obtained by the Times -- Wallsten said Obama addressed an audience during a 2003 farewell dinner for Khalidi, who was Obama's colleague at the University of Chicago, before his departure for Columbia University in New York. Obama said his many talks with Khalidi and his wife Mona stood as "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases."

Now one would think that the paper would be willing to offer documentation proving those charges – but they are not. Indeed, they now claim (after having repeatedly spun the decision in other ways) that they have an obligation to honor a secrecy promise made to an anonymous source. Odd, isn’t it, that the paper won’t do that with Top Secret government documents, bu will do so to protect a presidential candidate from his own words and record.

Well, the McCain camp has called out the LA Times over this journalistic malpractice in the name of electing their preferred candidate, and rightly so. After all, who knows what other bombshells might be in the tape?

Well, apparently journalist Doug Ross has some idea – he heard from an inside source at the paper who has actually seen some pretty damning content in the tape.

Saw a clip from the tape. Reason we can’t release it is because statements Obama said to rile audience up during toast. He congratulates Khalidi for his work saying “Israel has no God-given right to occupy Palestine” plus there’s been “genocide against the Palestinian people by Israelis.”

In other words, Barack Obama engaged in blood libel against the Jews in defense of those whose stated objective is the destruction of the Jewish homeland. Inded, his statement can only be understood as one supportive of that goal. That’s why the paper won’t allow the tape – or a transcript of the tape – to be released to the public. It would result in the desertion of Barack Oama by those who recognize that Israel is America’s only reliable ally in the region. He could kiss the Jewish vote goodbye – and with it Florida.

Interestingly enough, the sort of rhetoric Obama espoused that night should ring a bell for most Americans. It is precisely the same sort of rhetoric directed by his pastor, jeremiah Wright, against Israel from the pulpit and in his church newsletter (in which he reprinted Hamas propaganda). DoesnÂ’t that make the Wright connection incredibly relevant?

Oh, and by the way, LGF has a guest list for the event.

Posted by: Greg at 09:19 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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