The McSleazy campaign continues to flail around in its waning days, desperate for something to stick to Sen. Obama because talking about the economy is a loser for them. The latest attempt to change the subject is the flap over Columbia University Professor Rashid Khalidi, an American-born scholar of Palestinian ancestry who is a leading advocate for Palestinian rights. According to the LA Times, Khalidi "lavished praise on Obama" at a farewell dinner when Khalidi left the University of Chicago several years ago. A tape of that dinner was provided to the Times on condition that it not be released. Today's WaPo editorializes that McSleazy's attacks "are increasingly reckless," and blasts his comparison of Khalidi to neo-Nazis as a "vile smear."
Now the McSleazy campaign is insinuating all kinds of nefarious doings (as they tried with William Ayers). What they didn't count on was having to defend McSleazy himself, whose International Republican Institute provided $448,000 in multiple grants to a Palestinian research group co-founded by. . .(drum roll please). . .Rashid Khalidi!
So while Obama (as an adjunct professor at the University of Chicago) had a collegial relationship with Khalidi, McSleazy had a financial one, through the "Institute" that he chaired at the time. Boomerang!!
