McCain faults paper for not releasing Khalidi tape

Perhaps Joe the Plumber should be excused for thinking that an Obama presidency would mean the end of the state of Israel. After all, he easily might have gotten that impression from listening to John McCain or Sarah Palin. The AP is reporting on McCain and Palin's calls for the LA Times to release a viedotape that served as a partial basis for a story they ran six months ago. The story was about a party for Rashid Khalidi, a Palestinian-American professor with whom Obama is friends. Khalidi, as Obama has acknowledged, has been critical of Israeli policies. But as the story notes, both Obama and Khalidi have indicated that they are friends in spite of some significant disagreements about Israel. And, as the story notes, an organization chaired by McCain gave hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to sponsor research by Khalidi into Palestinian public opinion. Nonetheless, the AP reports:

"McCain and Palin cited the paper's position as evidence of media bias. The Times has endorsed Obama's candidacy.

'If there was a tape of John McCain in a neo-Nazi outfit, I think the treatment of the issue would be slightly different,' McCain said in an interview with Hispanic radio stations."

The quotation from McCain is not merely over-the-top political spin. It is a dishonest effort to play off of fear and prejudice. Likening attending a party for a respected scholar to wearing a neo-Nazi uniform (what do those look like, exactly, other than Nazi uniforms?) surely is intending to equate that gathering as being like attending a Nazi meeting. Of course nothing in the story supports that, and the story indicates that, while others spoke harshly of Israeli policy, Obama called for greater understanding on both sides. And the description of Obama's friendship with Khalidi fits neatly with Obama's arguments for engaging with even our enemies: by engaging with those with whom we disagree, we create opportunities for them and for us to broaden our understanding of issues. Now, I imagine that John McCain understands that, but it didn't stop him from equating Khalidi and his friends with Nazis. By Godwin's law, McCain loses the argument. Let's see if Godwin's law holds in elections.