Caught on tape

Sen. John McCain is skirmishing with the Los Angeles Times over videotape of a 2003 banquet for a Palestinian-American educator attended by Sen. Barack Obama. McCain is unhappy with the Times for not releasing video of the event for Rashid Khalidi at which disparaging things apparently were said about Israel. Obama acknowledges he has known Khalidi for a number of years but says his views on the Jewish state are vastly different from Khalidi’s. The newspaper says it got the video from a source conditioned on keeping it private. The paper says it keeps its promises to sources and that a detailed account of the banquet published in April was sufficient. The Khalidi matter appears to follow a pattern developed with other Obama associates — inconvenient in the heat of a presidential campaign — with Obama dismissing the influence of former pastor Jeremiah Wright and 1960s radical William Ayers. Did Obama denounce criticism of Israel or tolerate it? The video might tell. Would the newspaper have the same position if it had video showing McCain or running mate Sarah Palin at a gathering of white supremacists? Just asking. By the way, McCain also had ties with Khalidi; an organization he chairs gave more than $800,000 to a group associated with Khalidi in the late 1990s.

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