tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9085796.post2411272524842857623..comments2024-01-23T17:10:45.336-05:00Comments on THE AIR FORCE PUNDIT: Who is Rashid Khalidi?Captain Jarred Fishman, USAFRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16391139272536615638noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9085796.post-80775105529485226212008-10-31T23:03:00.000-04:002008-10-31T23:03:00.000-04:00Here is all you need to know about the author of t...Here is all you need to know about the author of this smear piece, Martin Kramer, from Wikipedia:<BR/><BR/>Martin Kramer was an early advocate of attacking Saddam Hussein in the wake of 9/11, arguing in December 2001 that regardless of a possible involvement, he posed a threat to the entire Middle East.[10] However, he was critical of the shifting rationale for the war in October 2002, questioning the United States' "tools of social engineering" needed to promote an eventual democracy process in the Arab world.[11]<BR/>He was a senior policy adviser on the Middle East to the Rudy Giuliani Presidential Campaign.<BR/><BR/>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Kramer<BR/><BR/>ALWAYS RESEARCH THE SOURCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9085796.post-67019049478454229322008-10-31T01:59:00.000-04:002008-10-31T01:59:00.000-04:00From the Washington Post:http://www.washingtonpost...From the Washington Post:<BR/>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/30/AR2008103003244.html?nav=hcmodule<BR/><BR/><BR/>An 'Idiot Wind'<BR/>John McCain's latest attempt to link Barack Obama to extremism<BR/>Friday, October 31, 2008; A18<BR/><BR/>WITH THE presidential campaign clock ticking down, Sen. John McCain has suddenly discovered a new boogeyman to link to Sen. Barack Obama: a sometimes controversial but widely respected Middle East scholar named Rashid Khalidi. In the past couple of days, Mr. McCain and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, have likened Mr. Khalidi, the director of a Middle East institute at Columbia University, to neo-Nazis; called him "a PLO spokesman"; and suggested that the Los Angeles Times is hiding something sinister by refusing to release a videotape of a 2003 dinner in honor of Mr. Khalidi at which Mr. Obama spoke. Mr. McCain even threw former Weatherman Bill Ayers into the mix, suggesting that the tape might reveal that Mr. Ayers -- a terrorist-turned-professor who also has been an Obama acquaintance -- was at the dinner.<BR/><BR/>For the record, Mr. Khalidi is an American born in New York who graduated from Yale a couple of years after George W. Bush. For much of his long academic career, he taught at the University of Chicago, where he and his wife became friends with Barack and Michelle Obama. In the early 1990s, he worked as an adviser to the Palestinian delegation at peace talks in Madrid and Washington sponsored by the first Bush administration. We don't agree with a lot of what Mr. Khalidi has had to say about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the years, and Mr. Obama has made clear that he doesn't, either. But to compare the professor to neo-Nazis -- or even to Mr. Ayers -- is a vile smear.<BR/><BR/>Perhaps unsurprising for a member of academia, Mr. Khalidi holds complex views. In an article published this year in the Nation magazine, he scathingly denounced Israeli practices in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and U.S. Middle East policy but also condemned Palestinians for failing to embrace a nonviolent strategy. He said that the two-state solution favored by the Bush administration (and Mr. Obama) was "deeply flawed" but conceded there were also "flaws in the alternatives." Listening to Mr. Khalidi can be challenging -- as Mr. Obama put it in the dinner toast recorded on the 2003 tape and reported by the Times in a detailed account of the event last April, he "offers constant reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases."<BR/><BR/>It's fair to question why Mr. Obama felt as comfortable as he apparently did during his Chicago days in the company of men whose views diverge sharply from what the presidential candidate espouses. Our sense is that Mr. Obama is a man of considerable intellectual curiosity who can hear out a smart, if militant, advocate for the Palestinians without compromising his own position. To suggest, as Mr. McCain has, that there is something reprehensible about associating with Mr. Khalidi is itself condemnable -- especially during a campaign in which Arab ancestry has been the subject of insults. To further argue that the Times, which obtained the tape from a source in exchange for a promise not to publicly release it, is trying to hide something is simply ludicrous, as Mr. McCain surely knows.<BR/><BR/>Which reminds us: We did ask Mr. Khalidi whether he wanted to respond to the campaign charges against him. He answered, via e-mail, that "I will stick to my policy of letting this idiot wind blow over." That's good advice for anyone still listening to the McCain campaign's increasingly reckless ad hominem attacks. Sadly, that wind is likely to keep blowing for four more days.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9085796.post-70437821360656097372008-10-31T01:55:00.000-04:002008-10-31T01:55:00.000-04:00From Jed Reporthttp://www.jedreport.com/I am not a...From Jed Report<BR/>http://www.jedreport.com/<BR/><BR/>I am not at all disturbed by Barack Obama's alleged relationship with Rashidi Khalidi, nor am I disturbed by Khalidi himself, and I say this as a supporter of Israel, as a Jew, and as an American.<BR/><BR/>I am, however, terribly disturbed by the McCain campaign's systematic assault on this man who not only has played no voluntary role in this campaign, but also owes what little prominence he does have at least in part to John McCain, who generously funded his organization in the 1990s.<BR/><BR/>Obviously, the reason this man is being targeted for his name and nothing more. I was watching a Palin rally yesterday in which she launched an attack on Khalidi, in the process so badly mangling his name that it was hardly recognizable, though it was clearly foreign-sounding.<BR/><BR/>Before she had finished mispronouncing it, however, the crowd was already booing. They had no idea who this man was. All they knew is that they didn't like the way his name sounded.<BR/><BR/>That's not the America we want to live in. That's McCarthyism. That's what McCain and Palin now represent, and on Tuesday, we bid them farewell.<BR/><BR/>It will be a good riddance.<BR/><BR/><BR/>>>>Well said. Take heed, Lt McCarthyAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9085796.post-5054285785139733682008-10-31T01:27:00.000-04:002008-10-31T01:27:00.000-04:00Don't bother commenting on Lt Cut and Paste's blog...Don't bother commenting on Lt Cut and Paste's blog. He never responds, too scared to actually speak for himself. He only trolls Fox Noize for his articles that he cowardly copies and pastes, right Lt Copy and Paste?<BR/><BR/>Did you know MCain's group donated almost $1,000,000 to this guy? Careful with the guilt by association attacks, Lt CaP.<BR/><BR/>Quit sucking up to the GOP with these smears; I'm sure you could find work as a secretary, you know, copying and pasting.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9085796.post-5229356015588774342008-10-30T22:51:00.000-04:002008-10-30T22:51:00.000-04:00McCain Funds PLO? See http://notionscapital.wordpr...McCain Funds PLO? <BR/><BR/>See http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2008/10/30/mccain-funds-plo/Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9085796.post-67231059736490596422008-10-30T17:51:00.000-04:002008-10-30T17:51:00.000-04:00"and not all that long ago"? Are you serious? Yo..."and not all that long ago"? Are you serious? You are seriously convicting someone for their thoughts in college? He was in college years before I was! God, I pray for people like you. You really are sick and I am grateful that most people are not judged by the thoughts and questions they had in College.New Momhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06640992457312312559noreply@blogger.com