SUPPRESION OF THE MEDIA

[crazybabyborg]

Obama Begins Suppression of the Media—and more
 By Sher Zieve  Tuesday, October 28, 2008


Even before the 2008 US presidential elections Barack Obama, his campaign and supporters have begun their constraint of the press.  Chillingly, the leftist Obama media—which includes all of the usual suspects both print and television—are not only going along with it but, have begun their own investigations and vilifications of their colleagues who have refused to drink the Obama Kool-Aid.  Obama’s latest victim is Investigative Reporter Barbara West of Orlando’s WFTV who asked Democrat VP Candidate Joe Biden some probing questions; questions that had, prior to that, not been asked of either the secular messiah Obama or his vice prophet. 

West asked questions about Obama’s relationships with voter fraud group ACORN—relationships that have been well-documented in my previous columns.  In answering the ACORN questions Biden lied a number of times, including his saying that the Obama-Biden campaign had no ties to ACORN and that it and Obama had contributed no money to the group.  Note:  I guess that Biden is ‘so-one-of-the-rich-elite’ that he doesn’t believe $832,000 contributed by the Obama campaign to ACORN front group Citizens Services, Inc. amounts to a contribution.  This is yet another fact that the almost all-encompassing Obama press failed to bring to the public.

Then, West asked him about Obama’s answer to Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher (AKA “Joe the Plumber”) about “spreading the wealth” and questioned Biden about the answer’s implication of Marxism.  Biden then became angered and began to ask such condescending questions as “Is that a real question” and “who writes your questions [for you]?” Note:  Obama’s comment “spreading the wealth” and Founder of Communism Karl Marx’s “redistribution of wealth” are one in the same.  There is additional evidence in an Obama interview to NPR advising that not only does Obama believe in this Marxist ideology but, was “disappointed” that the US Supreme Court did not tackle it.  One can only surmise from that comment that he meant by legislating from the bench.  Further, in the 1990s Obama was a member of the New Socialist Party—card carrying and everything!  The Obama media has also failed to report this—or anything else—that could damage their candidate. 

For her questions, West—who worked with Peter Jennings (hardly a conservative) for years—has been told by the Obama campaign that neither she nor her TV station will have any additional access to the Democrat candidate (frozen out) and is now being investigated by the Obama media in order to dig up dirt on her and members of her family.  Leftist Fox News contributor and Obama-supporter Bob Beckel—also angered by West’s questions—said “she’s not going anywhere” and implied that her career is over.  By the way, after Joe the Plumber asked the question that elicited Obama’s “spread the wealth” comment, an Ohio state investigation—by a Democrat and Obama-supporting official—began.  Illegal or not, it’s being done and will continue. 

Obama’s “Truth Squads” are already in place.  These appear to have begun in Missouri but, Democrat Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell has also formed a chapter.  This is intimidation waged against US citizens under the color of authority.

This is just the beginning, folks.  Obama is showing us—heck he’s shouting to us—what his administration will be like.  He’s not yet POTUS and he’s already beginning the investigations of private citizens for daring to ask tough questions of the Democrat messiah.  This is aptly and correctly called Stalinistic tactics. 

If you think you’ll be able to vote this guy Obama out of office in 4 years, think again.  Citizens living in the old—now being resurrected—Soviet Union probably thought the same thing.

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/5866

[Tamikosmom]

LA Times Refuses to Release Tape of Obama Praising Controversial Activist
Video of farewell party for alleged PLO worker shows Obama toasting 'friend and dinner companion' with questionable past.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

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.

Click here to read the original LA Times story: 'Palestinians See a Friend in Barack Obama.'

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."

Khalidi is currently the Edward Said professor of Arab Studies at Columbia. A pro-Palestinian activist, he has been a fierce critic of American foreign policy and of Israel, which he has accused of establishing an "apartheid system" of government. The PLO advocate helped facilitate negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians in the early '90s, but he has denied he was ever an employee of the group, contradicting accounts in the New York Times and Washington Times.

The LA Times told FOXNews.com that it won't reveal how it obtained the tape of Khalidi's farewell party, nor will the newspaper release it. Spokeswoman Nancy Sullivan said the paper is not interested in revisiting the story. "As far as we're concerned, the story speaks for itself," she said.

The newspaper reported Tuesday evening in a story on its Web site that the tape was from a confidential source.

"The Los Angeles Times did not publish the videotape because it was provided to us by a confidential source who did so on the condition that we not release it," the Times' editor, Russ Stanton, said. "The Times keeps its promises to sources."

In recent months Obama has distanced himself from the man the Times says he once called a friend. "He is not one of my advisers. He's not one of my foreign policy people," Obama said at a campaign event in May. "He is a respected scholar, although he vehemently disagrees with a lot of Israel's policy."

But on the tape, according to the Times, Obama said in his toast that he hoped his relationship with Khalidi would continue even after the professor left Chicago. "It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation -- a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table ... [but around] this entire world."

A number of Web sites have accused the Times of purposely suppressing the tape of the event -- which former Weather Underground terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn reportedly attended. 

Sullivan said she would not give details of what else may be on the tape, adding that anyone interested in the video should read the newspaper's report, which was its final account.

"This is a story that we reported on six months ago, so any suggestion that we're suppressing the tape is absurd -- we're the ones that brought the existence of the tape to light," Sullivan said.

The Los Angeles Times endorsed Obama for president on October 19.

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10/28/la-times-refuses-release-tape-obama-praising-controversial-activist/

[Tamikosmom]

Obama Campaign Cuts Off Interviews With Florida TV Station
Biden gets asked tough questions by Orlando reporter
Saturday, October 25, 2008

Barack Obama's campaign killed all interviews with a Florida TV station after Sen. Joe Biden, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, faced tough and critical questions from a reporter at the Orlando station, the Orlando Sentinel reported .

During a satellite video Thursday, WFTV's Barbara West quoted Karl Marx and asked Biden how Obama's comment to "Joe the Plumber," about spreading the wealth wasn't being Marxist.

"Are you joking?," Biden asked.

West replied, "No."

Click here to watch the interview.

Later in the interview West questioned Biden about his comments that if Obama wins the election next month, he would be tested early on as president and wanted to know if Biden was implying America was no longer the world's leading power.

"I don't know who's writing your questions," Biden asked her.

The Obama camp then killed a WFTV interview with Biden's wife Jill, according to an Orlando Sentinel blog.

"This cancellation is non-negotiable, and further opportunities for your station to interview with this campaign are unlikely, at best for the duration of the remaining days until the election," wrote Laura K. McGinnis, Central Florida communications director for the Obama campaign, according to the Sentinel.

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10/25/obama-campaign-cuts-interviews-florida-tv-station/

Video:
Barbara West interviews Joe Biden (10/23/08)
http://www.wftv.com/video/17790025/index.html

[Tamikosmom]

Why is Glen Beck no longer hosting his talk show on CNN.?  Glen's contract did not expire until March 2009.

[caesu]

Glen Beck went to FOX News.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/business/media/17fox.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

[Slogger]

Before his contract was up?

I think Glenn Beck was doing well.  Mysterious.

[Tamikosmom]

I am on Glen Beck's mass email list.

On October 17th ... his email informed that he was moving to FOX when his CNN contract was up in March, 2009.  However ... he would be remaining in his regular daily time slots on CNN until then.  One more show and ... than "POOF" ... he was no more.

However ... Glen Beck in another email assured that ... THE TRUTH WILL BE REVEALED!!

I suspect that Glen Beck's contract was forced to leave and ... his contract was paid out.  I suspect that the "powers that be" within the Obama camped put pressure on/compensated on CNN to insure that Glen Beck's voice was silenced on CNN in the final weeks of the election compaign.

Janet

[caesu]

usually Jack Cafferty was on every day in the Situation Room on CNN.
lately he isn't on everyday anymore. and for a few weeks he wasn't there at all.
maybe other 'powers that be' forced him to appear less, he has been very critical of McCain and Palin.

[Tamikosmom]

CNN's token conservative had to go.  He could not be kept until his contract ran out.   When the candidate who is running for Presidence of the World and ...  Glen Becks huge and growing viewing audience was considered ...

I am not psychic but ... common sense told me about a month before Glen Beck's departure that CNN would silence him prior to the elections.  Other than maybe Lou Dobbs who is not nearly as outspoken as Glen Beck ... NO OTHER CNN HOSTS ever undermine Obama to any degree.

It is downright scary.  It is so obvious that left-wing entities are influencing the mainstream media of the United States of America.

IMO  IMO

Janet

+++++++++

Two days following the printing of this article ... Glen Beck's slots on CNN were no longer Glen Beck's slots.


October 16, 2008
Glenn Beck joins Fox News

Currently, Beck serves as the host of Glenn Beck, a talk show on CNN’s Headline News which has grown more than 200% in viewership in both the 7pm and 9pm timeslots since its 2006 debut. He also hosts a daily radio show The Glenn Beck Program which is syndicated via Premiere Radio Networks to more than 300 stations nationwide as well as XM Satellite Radio, and ranks as the third most listened to radio talk show in America among adults 25-54.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/michaelcalderone/1008/Glenn_Beck_joins_Fox_News.html?showall

[Slogger]

usually Jack Cafferty was on every day in the Situation Room on CNN.
lately he isn't on everyday anymore. and for a few weeks he wasn't there at all.
maybe other 'powers that be' forced him to appear less, he has been very critical of McCain and Palin.

Sorry, I think this is wrong.  Didn't Jack Cafferty's wife die, recently? 
(maybe I can find more on this)

Hope you're not suggesting anything further. 

[Slogger]

keywords:  Cafferty wife died


> Published on: Monday, September 08, 2008
> Stewartsville local and wife of CNN anchor dies


> Carol J. Cafferty, a hometown girl of Stewartsville Missouri died
> unexpectedly Friday, September 5. Cafferty is best known as the beloved wife
> of wife of Jack Cafferty, CNN's anchor and reporter and frequent personality
> featured on CNN's, The Situation Room. The two met years ago when Jack was a
> local news anchor in Kansas City. Carol and Jack were married for 35 years.


http://groups.google.com/group/alt.obituaries/msg/f9360f1798f52ae4

[Tamikosmom]

THE SITUATION ROOM
Aired September 5, 2008

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: ... But first, this very, very sad note. Jack Cafferty isn't here today for "The Cafferty File" because of some tragic news. His wife of 35 years, Carol, passed away unexpectedly this morning.

Carol was everything to Jack. The dedication of his book reads, "For Carol, my wife, my life."

Jack wrote about how she was the inspiration for him to get sober and straighten up his life. And I'm quoting now, "In all the years that we've been married, she has always brought to the table her unshakable grounding in something a lot more real than being on television or being recognized in the corner drugstore. She has been my rock, having done a magnificent job of keeping me from getting full of helium and drifting off the surface of the earth."

"She was all the incentive I needed to make painful but transforming changes to get sober and stop smoking. I knew that I'd lose her if I didn't. She's an amazing woman who simply wasn't worth losing." That's a quote from his book.

One story Jack loves to tell is how he and Carol met when he was a local news anchor in Kansas City. They started to meet regularly for a quick meal between his shows and became very good friends. Whenever Jack had to leave, his exit line would always be, "We better wrap this up, got to get back to the station."

One night Carol finally asked, "What kind of gas station do you work at? You're always wearing a tie." Jack explained it was a television station.

He loved the fact that she had no clue and couldn't care less that he had been on air there in Kansas City every night for four years. He later described that as one of his life's 24-carat moments that made his heart soar.

He said to himself then that he might marry her because "... it can't get any more honest and pure than that." Those are Jacks words.

Our deepest sympathies go out to Jack and their two daughters, Leslie and Lee (ph). Our thoughts also are with Jack's other two daughters, Julie and Jill Ann (ph), his grandchildren.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0809/05/sitroom.01.html

[caesu]

usually Jack Cafferty was on every day in the Situation Room on CNN.
lately he isn't on everyday anymore. and for a few weeks he wasn't there at all.
maybe other 'powers that be' forced him to appear less, he has been very critical of McCain and Palin.

Sorry, I think this is wrong.  Didn't Jack Cafferty's wife die, recently? 
(maybe I can find more on this)

Hope you're not suggesting anything further. 

i know. but then he was back for a week. and then he was gone for a few weeks.

i only mentioned Jack Cafferty in response to the suggestion that somehow 'powers that be' decide who appears or does not appear on TV.

[Tamikosmom]

THE DOUBLE STANDARD BY STEVE WHITMORE - SPOKESMAN FOR THE LA COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT!!

So let me understand the situation.

An effigy of Sarah Palin being hanged is in "bad taste" because she is White but ... the an effigy of Barack Obama is would be a more serious matter because he is Black.

GMAB!!!

Janet

_______


Authorities investigate Sarah Palin... Photos: Candidate effigies Candidate effigies
Should the Palin effigy be removed? Share your thoughts

"I'm not defending this; I'm not criticizing it. It doesn't rise to the level of hate crime," said Steve Whitmore, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, who said he went out to the house himself to look at the display this morning.

"Now, if there was a crime against bad taste . . . "

Sgt. Kristin Aloma of the Sheriff's Department's West Hollywood station said that since Sunday she had received five to 10 calls from residents offended by the display. Officials are monitoring the house to make sure the situation doesn't get out of hand, she said.

West Hollywood Mayor Jeffrey Prang said although he recognizes residents' right to free speech, he found the display problematic and felt it should be removed.

"While these residents have the legal right to display Senator John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin in effigy, I strongly oppose political speech that references violence -- real or perceived," Prang said in a statement. "I urge these residents to take down their display and find more constructive ways to express their opinion."

Whitmore said that potential hate crimes are evaluated on a case-by-case basis. If the same display had been made of a Barack Obama-like doll, for example, authorities would have to evaluate it independently, Whitmore said.

"That adds a whole other social, historical hate aspect to the display, and that is embedded in the consciousness of the country," he said, adding he's not sure whether it would be a hate crime. "It would be ill-advised of anybody to speculate on that."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-palineffigy28-2008oct28,0,541630.story

[Tamikosmom]

COMMENTS
Sarah Palin effigy: a Halloween trick gone too far?
5:33 PM, October 27, 2008
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/comments_blog/2008/10/palin-effigy-a.html

[Tamikosmom]

THE DOUBLE STANDARD BY STEVE WHITMORE - SPOKESMAN FOR THE LA COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT!!

So let me understand the situation.

An effigy of Sarah Palin being hanged is in "bad taste" because she is White but ... the an effigy of Barack Obama is would be a more serious matter because he is Black.

GMAB!!!

Janet

_______


Authorities investigate Sarah Palin... Photos: Candidate effigies Candidate effigies
Should the Palin effigy be removed? Share your thoughts

"I'm not defending this; I'm not criticizing it. It doesn't rise to the level of hate crime," said Steve Whitmore, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, who said he went out to the house himself to look at the display this morning.

"Now, if there was a crime against bad taste . . . "

Sgt. Kristin Aloma of the Sheriff's Department's West Hollywood station said that since Sunday she had received five to 10 calls from residents offended by the display. Officials are monitoring the house to make sure the situation doesn't get out of hand, she said.

West Hollywood Mayor Jeffrey Prang said although he recognizes residents' right to free speech, he found the display problematic and felt it should be removed.

"While these residents have the legal right to display Senator John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin in effigy, I strongly oppose political speech that references violence -- real or perceived," Prang said in a statement. "I urge these residents to take down their display and find more constructive ways to express their opinion."

Whitmore said that potential hate crimes are evaluated on a case-by-case basis. If the same display had been made of a Barack Obama-like doll, for example, authorities would have to evaluate it independently, Whitmore said.

"That adds a whole other social, historical hate aspect to the display, and that is embedded in the consciousness of the country," he said, adding he's not sure whether it would be a hate crime. "It would be ill-advised of anybody to speculate on that."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-palineffigy28-2008oct28,0,541630.story

There was not appology forthcoming to Sarah Palin from Steve Whitmore ... spokesman for the LA country Shiriff's Deparment but ... Barack Obama is received an apology from Lee Todd ... President of the University of Kentucky and Federal Authorities are being notified..

DOUBLE STANDARD!!!!

Janet

_______

 
Obama effigy found on U. of Kentucky campus
Oct 29 04:36 PM US/Eastern
By JEFFREY McMURRAY
Associated Press Writer

LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) - University of Kentucky authorities were investigating Wednesday who hanged an effigy of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama from a tree on campus.

College spokesman Carl Nathe said the effigy was found Wednesday morning. Police immediately took it down. A faculty member said he saw the effigy with a noose around its neck, hanging from a high tree branch.

University President Lee Todd said he planned to apologize to the Obama family on behalf of the school and that he is "personally offended and deeply embarrassed by this disgusting episode."

Federal authorities have been notified, Todd said."

http://www.kansascity.com/440/story/864910.html

[Tamikosmom]

McCain Slams LA Times for Double Standard in Withholding Obama-Khalidi Tape

John McCain says he's sure The Los Angeles Times would be quick to produce a tape that purported to show him or his running mate at a neo-Nazi event, so he can't understand why it won't show Barack Obama in the company of a former PLO mouthpiece.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008


John McCain slammed The Los Angeles Times Wednesday for refusing to release a videotape that the newspaper's editors say shows Barack Obama praising a Chicago professor who served as a spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization when it was a U.S.-designated terror group.

Speaking to two Florida radio stations, the Republican presidential candidate suggested a double standard in reporting by the newspaper and said if he were hanging out with neo-Nazis he'd bet the tape would be made public.

The Times says it is standing by its promise not to show the tape, which it got from an anonymous source. The newspaper also has not provided a transcript of the 2003 farewell party for University of Chicago professor Rashid Khalidi. Among others in attendance at the soiree were former Weather Underground founders William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.

"Apparently this is a tape with a dinner that Mr. Ayers ... was at, and also ... one of the leading spokespersons for the PLO. Now, why that should not be made public is beyond me," McCain told La Kalle radio.

"I guarantee you, if there was a tape with me and Sarah Palin and some neo-Nazi or one of those, you think that that tape wouldn't be made public? Of course, Americans need to know, particularly about Ayers, and also about the PLO. So hopefully there will be enough pressure on the L.A. Times that it'll come out, but its really unfortunate that we have to go through this," McCain continued.

Palin too lambasted the newspaper for its inaction.

"If there's a Pulitzer Prize category for excelling in cow-towing, then the LA Times, you're winning," she said.

The LA Times told FOXNews.com that it won't reveal how it obtained the tape of Khalidi's farewell party, nor will the newspaper release it. Spokeswoman Nancy Sullivan said the paper is not interested in revisiting the story. "As far as we're concerned, the story speaks for itself," she said.

The newspaper reported Tuesday evening in a story on its Web site that the tape was from a confidential source.

"The Los Angeles Times did not publish the videotape because it was provided to us by a confidential source who did so on the condition that we not release it," the Times' editor, Russ Stanton, said. "The Times keeps its promises to sources."

Asked about the party and his relationship with Obama, Khalidi refused Wednesday to discuss the matter.

"I am not speaking to the press at this time, and do not speak to Fox in any case, as I just wrote one of your colleagues," Khalidi wrote in an e-mail statement to FOXNews.com.

The Obama campaign called the impasse "just another recycled, manufactured controversy from the McCain campaign to distract voters' attention from John McCain's lock-step support for George Bush's economic policies."

"Barack Obama has been clear and consistent on his support for Israel, and has been clear that Rasheed Khalidi is not an adviser to him or his campaign and that he does not share Khalidi's views. Instead of giving lectures on media bias, John McCain should answer why, under his own chairmanship, the International Republican Institute repeatedly funded an organization Khalidi founded, the Center for Palestine Research and Studies, over the course of many years," said spokesman Tommy Vietor.

Referring to the polling company used in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the 1990s and hired by IRI, the nonprofit, nonpartisan democratic advocacy organization s overseen by Congress, the McCain camp said Vietor's allegation doesn't compare.

"Funding polling by a relatively well-respected organization that may or may not have had Khalidi on its board at the time does not come close to equating to hours of dinnertime conversations and glowing testimonials at a farewell dinner," retorted McCain spokesman Michael Goldfarb.

The L.A. Times first reported on the relationship between Obama and Khalidi in April.

Click here to read the original LA Times story: 'Palestinians See a Friend in Barack Obama.'

In the article, it quoted Obama at Khalidi's going-away party, calling Khalidi his "friend and frequent dinner companion." At the time, Obama reminisced about dinners at the home of Khalidi and his wife Mona, who were leaving Chicago and heading to New York for Khalidi's new job at Columbia University.

The dinner talks had been "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases. . . . It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation -- a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table," but around "this entire world," the Times wrote, quoting Obama on the purported videotape.

The article went on to describe how Obama offered new hope to Palestinian Americans for a new U.S. policy on the Middle East and mentioned that one guest at the party compared "Zionist settlers on the West Bank" to Usama bin Laden because both had been "blinded by ideology."

Palin said she wants to know how Obama responded to derogatory comments said about Israel and America's support for its ally during the party.

"Israel was described there as the perpetrator of terrorism instead of the victim. What we don't know, what we don't know, is how Barack Obama responded to these slurs on a country that he now professes to support, and the reason is the newspaper that has the tape, The Los Angeles Times, refuses to release it," she said. "It must be nice for a candidate to have major news organizations looking after his best interests like that.The original article pointed out that the party, in which Khalidi encouraged guests to support Obama's run for the U.S. Senate, was videotaped and a copy had been obtained by The Times. It did not mention that the Times reporter and editors had vowed not to show the tape to anyone.

<snipped>

Sullivan said she would not give details of what else may be on the tape, adding that anyone interested in the video should read the newspaper's report, which was its final account.

"This is a story that we reported on six months ago, so any suggestion that we're suppressing the tape is absurd -- we're the ones that brought the existence of the tape to light," Sullivan said.

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, is currently the Edwards Said professor of Arab Studies at Columbia.

When Columbia hosted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a guest speaker last year, Khalidi told The New York Times after the appearance that he was "embarrassed" that university president Lee Bollinger wasn't nicer to the head of the Islamic Republic during his visit.

A pro-Palestinian activist, Khalidi has been a fierce critic of American foreign policy and of Israel, which he has accused of establishing an "apartheid system" of government. The PLO advocate helped facilitate negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians in the early '90s, but he has denied he was ever an employee of the group, contradicting accounts in The New York Times and Washington Times.

Khalidi, who has a new book coming out in February titled "Sowing Crisis: The Cold War and American Hegemony in the Middle East," has been called "the foremost U.S. historian of the modern Middle East." That description appeared in a 2004 book review from University of Maryland professor Warren I. Cohen that appeared in the The Los Angeles Times.

The L.A. Times article in April noted that Khalidi was a professor at the University of Beirut at the time he was a mouthpiece for the PLO. 

Obama in recent months has distanced himself from the man the Times says he once called a friend. "He is not one of my advisers. He's not one of my foreign policy people," Obama said at a campaign event in May. "He is a respected scholar, although he vehemently disagrees with a lot of Israel's policy."

The Los Angeles Times endorsed Obama for president on Oct. 19.

Tell the LA Times What You Think by e-mailing the paper's "readers' representative," Jamie Gold, at readers.rep@latimes.com or click here to fill out a feedback form. Or call to leave a message with Gold at (877) 554-4000. 

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10/29/mccain-slams-la-times-double-standard-withholding-obama-khalidi-tape/

[Tamikosmom]

Allies of Palestinians see a friend in Barack Obama
Joe Raymond / Associated Press
Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama addresses a rally at South Bend Washington High School Wednesday in South Bend, Ind.
They consider him receptive despite his clear support of Israel.
By Peter Wallsten, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

April 10, 2008

CHICAGO -- It was a celebration of Palestinian culture -- a night of music, dancing and a dash of politics. Local Arab Americans were bidding farewell to Rashid Khalidi, an internationally known scholar, critic of Israel and advocate for Palestinian rights, who was leaving town for a job in New York.

A special tribute came from Khalidi's friend and frequent dinner companion, the young state Sen. Barack Obama. Speaking to the crowd, Obama reminisced about meals prepared by Khalidi's wife, Mona, and conversations that had challenged his thinking

His many talks with the Khalidis, Obama said, had been "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases. . . . It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation -- a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table," but around "this entire world."

Today, five years later, Obama is a U.S. senator from Illinois who expresses a firmly pro-Israel view of Middle East politics, pleasing many of the Jewish leaders and advocates for Israel whom he is courting in his presidential campaign. The dinner conversations he had envisioned with his Palestinian American friend have ended. He and Khalidi have seen each other only fleetingly in recent years.

And yet the warm embrace Obama gave to Khalidi, and words like those at the professor's going-away party, have left some Palestinian American leaders believing that Obama is more receptive to their viewpoint than he is willing to say.

Their belief is not drawn from Obama's speeches or campaign literature, but from comments that some say Obama made in private and from his association with the Palestinian American community in his hometown of Chicago, including his presence at events where anger at Israeli and U.S. Middle East policy was freely expressed.

At Khalidi's 2003 farewell party, for example, a young Palestinian American recited a poem accusing the Israeli government of terrorism in its treatment of Palestinians and sharply criticizing U.S. support of Israel. If Palestinians cannot secure their own land, she said, "then you will never see a day of peace."

One speaker likened "Zionist settlers on the West Bank" to Osama bin Laden, saying both had been "blinded by ideology."

Obama adopted a different tone in his comments and called for finding common ground. But his presence at such events, as he worked to build a political base in Chicago, has led some Palestinian leaders to believe that he might deal differently with the Middle East than either of his opponents for the White House.

"I am confident that Barack Obama is more sympathetic to the position of ending the occupation than either of the other candidates," said Hussein Ibish, a senior fellow for the American Task Force on Palestine, referring to the Israeli presence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that began after the 1967 war. More than his rivals for the White House, Ibish said, Obama sees a "moral imperative" in resolving the conflict and is most likely to apply pressure to both sides to make concessions.

"That's my personal opinion," Ibish said, "and I think it for a very large number of circumstantial reasons, and what he's said."

Aides say that Obama's friendships with Palestinian Americans reflect only his ability to interact with a wide diversity of people, and that his views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have been consistent. Obama has called himself a "stalwart" supporter of the Jewish state and its security needs. He believes in an eventual two-state solution in which Jewish and Palestinian nations exist in peace, which is consistent with current U.S. policy.

Obama also calls for the U.S. to talk to such declared enemies as Iran, Syria and Cuba. But he argues that the Palestinian militant organization Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, is an exception, calling it a terrorist group that should renounce violence and recognize Israel's right to exist before dialogue begins. That viewpoint, which also matches current U.S. policy, clashes with that of many Palestinian advocates who urge the United States and Israel to treat Hamas as a partner in negotiations.

"Barack's belief is that it's important to understand other points of view, even if you can't agree with them," said his longtime political strategist, David Axelrod.

Obama "can disagree without shunning or demonizing those with other views," he said. "That's far different than the suggestion that he somehow tailors his view."

Looking for clues

But because Obama is relatively new on the national political scene, and new to foreign policy questions such as the long-simmering Israeli-Palestinian conflict, both sides have been looking closely for clues to what role he would play in that dispute.

And both sides, on certain issues, have interpreted Obama's remarks as supporting their point of view.

Last year, for example, Obama was quoted saying that "nobody's suffering more than the Palestinian people." The candidate later said the remark had been taken out of context, and that he meant that the Palestinians were suffering "from the failure of the Palestinian leadership [in Gaza] to recognize Israel" and to renounce violence.

Jewish leaders were satisfied with Obama's explanation, but some Palestinian leaders, including Ibish, took the original quotation as a sign of the candidate's empathy for their plight.

Obama's willingness to befriend Palestinian Americans and to hear their views also impressed, and even excited, a community that says it does not often have the ear of the political establishment.

Among other community events, Obama in 1998 attended a speech by Edward Said, the late Columbia University professor and a leading intellectual in the Palestinian movement. According to a news account of the speech, Said called that day for a nonviolent campaign "against settlements, against Israeli apartheid."

The use of such language to describe Israel's policies has drawn vehement objection from Israel's defenders in the United States. A photo on the pro-Palestinian website the Electronic Intifada shows Obama and his wife, Michelle, engaged in conversation at the dinner table with Said, and later listening to Said's keynote address. Obama had taken an English class from Said as an undergraduate at Columbia University.

Ali Abunimah, a Palestinian rights activist in Chicago who helps run Electronic Intifada, said that he met Obama several times at Palestinian and Arab American community events. At one, a 2000 fundraiser at a private home, Obama called for the U.S. to take an "even-handed" approach toward Israel, Abunimah wrote in an article on the website last year. He did not cite Obama's specific criticisms.

Abunimah, in a Times interview and on his website, said Obama seemed sympathetic to the Palestinian cause but more circumspect as he ran for the U.S. Senate in 2004. At a dinner gathering that year, Abunimah said, Obama greeted him warmly and said privately that he needed to speak cautiously about the Middle East.

Abunimah quoted Obama as saying that he was sorry he wasn't talking more about the Palestinian cause, but that his primary campaign had constrained what he could say.

Obama, through his aide Axelrod, denied he ever said those words, and Abunimah's account could not be independently verified.

"In no way did he take a position privately that he hasn't taken publicly and consistently," Axelrod said of Obama. "He always had expressed solicitude for the Palestinian people, who have been ill-served and have suffered greatly from the refusal of their leaders to renounce violence and recognize Israel's right to exist."

In Chicago, one of Obama's friends was Khalidi, a highly visible figure in the Arab American community.

In the 1970s, when Khalidi taught at a university in Beirut, he often spoke to reporters on behalf of Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization. In the early 1990s, he advised the Palestinian delegation during peace negotiations. Khalidi now occupies a prestigious professorship of Arab studies at Columbia.

He is seen as a moderate in Palestinian circles, having decried suicide bombings against civilians as a "war crime" and criticized the conduct of Hamas and other Palestinian leaders. Still, many of Khalidi's opinions are troubling to pro-Israel activists, such as his defense of Palestinians' right to resist Israeli occupation and his critique of U.S. policy as biased toward Israel.

While teaching at the University of Chicago, Khalidi and his wife lived in the Hyde Park neighborhood near the Obamas. The families became friends and dinner companions.

In 2000, the Khalidis held a fundraiser for Obama's unsuccessful congressional bid. The next year, a social service group whose board was headed by Mona Khalidi received a $40,000 grant from a local charity, the Woods Fund of Chicago, when Obama served on the fund's board of directors.

At Khalidi's going-away party in 2003, the scholar lavished praise on Obama, telling the mostly Palestinian American crowd that the state senator deserved their help in winning a U.S. Senate seat. "You will not have a better senator under any circumstances," Khalidi said.

The event was videotaped, and a copy of the tape was obtained by The Times.

Though Khalidi has seen little of Sen. Obama in recent years, Michelle Obama attended a party several months ago celebrating the marriage of the Khalidis' daughter.

In interviews with The Times, Khalidi declined to discuss specifics of private talks over the years with Obama. He did not begrudge his friend for being out of touch, or for focusing more these days on his support for Israel -- a stance that Khalidi calls a requirement to win a national election in the U.S., just as wooing Chicago's large Arab American community was important for winning local elections.

Khalidi added that he strongly disagrees with Obama's current views on Israel, and often disagreed with him during their talks over the years. But he added that Obama, because of his unusual background, with family ties to Kenya and Indonesia, would be more understanding of the Palestinian experience than typical American politicians.

"He has family literally all over the world," Khalidi said. "I feel a kindred spirit from that."

Ties with Israel

Even as he won support in Chicago's Palestinian community, Obama tried to forge ties with advocates for Israel.

In 2000, he submitted a policy paper to CityPAC, a pro-Israel political action committee, that among other things supported a unified Jerusalem as Israel's capital, a position far out of step from that of his Palestinian friends. The PAC concluded that Obama's position paper "suggests he is strongly pro-Israel on all of the major issues."

In 2002, as a rash of suicide bombings struck Israel, Obama sought out a Jewish colleague in the state Senate and asked whether he could sign onto a measure calling on Palestinian leaders to denounce violence. "He came to me and said, 'I want to have my name next to yours,' " said his former state Senate colleague Ira Silverstein, an observant Jew.

As a presidential candidate, Obama has won support from such prominent Chicago Jewish leaders as Penny Pritzker, a member of the family that owns the Hyatt hotel chain, and who is now his campaign finance chair, and from Lee Rosenberg, a board member of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Nationally, Obama continues to face skepticism from some Jewish leaders who are wary of his long association with his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., who had made racially incendiary comments during several sermons that recently became widely known. Questions have persisted about Wright in part because of the recent revelation that his church bulletin reprinted a Times op-ed written by a leader of Hamas.

One Jewish leader said he viewed Obama's outreach to Palestinian activists, such as Said, in the light of his relationship to Wright.

"In the context of spending 20 years in a church where now it is clear the anti-Israel rhetoric was there, was repeated, . . . that's what makes his presence at an Arab American event with a Said a greater concern," said Abraham H. Foxman, national director for the Anti-Defamation League.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-obamamideast10apr10,0,1780231,full.story

[Tamikosmom]

Republicans Train Frustrations on Media 'Bias'
Republicans are lashing out at an Alabama TV station for pulling an ad from GOP congressional candidate Wayne Parker, the latest in a series of charges of "media bias." 

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Faced with dim prospects in Congress and an uphill climb to the White House on Election Day, Republicans are increasingly taking out their frustrations on the media, accusing them of tipping the scale in favor of Democrats.

Studies have shown that media coverage has consistently favored Barack Obama over John McCain during the presidential campaign, and McCain has used the skepticism of the "pundits" to shore up his own carefully cultivated "underdog" image.

Now, a handful of incidents over the past few days is invigorating critics who say the press is rooting for a Democratic sweep on Nov. 4.

On Wednesday, the National Republican Congressional Committee lashed out at a local Alabama television station after it yanked a TV ad for Republican House hopeful Wayne Parker.

The ad showed images of terrorist attacks and played a quote from Parker's opponent, Parker Griffith, in which Griffith said, "America's greatest enemy is America and its materialism ... We have nothing to fear from radical Islam."

According to the Huntsville Times, the quotes were taken from a forum with the candidates in September.

Griffith's campaign said in a written statement last week that the ad was misleading and that his quotes were "misused," since the comments in the ad were "part of a discussion of whether or not radical Islam was a threat to our Christian beliefs."

Griffith said in the statement that "obviously radical Islam ... [is] a threat to our national security."

NRCC Spokesman Brendan Buck called the decision to pull the ad "obscene" and accused the station, Huntsville-based WAAY-TV, of "covering" for the Democratic candidate.

"Regardless of how WAAY would like to see this campaign turn out, voters of the 5th District deserve a media that gives both sides an equal voice," Buck said.

"WAAY's obscene decision to deny voters the right to hear Parker Griffith's own words doesn't change the fact that Griffith believes America's greatest enemy is America. Voters should have the opportunity to listen and judge for themselves whether they share Parker Griffith's dangerously naive and insulting world view."

A representative from WAAY-TV declined to comment to FOX News. But according to the NRCC, WAAY's station manager told them the Griffith campaign complained to them that the ad was unfair, and the station decided to pull the ad without notifying the Parker campaign.

Meanwhile, a debate is raging over the Los Angeles Times' refusal to release a videotape that it says shows Obama praising a Chicago professor who was an alleged mouthpiece for the Palestine Liberation Organization in the 1970s and '80s.

In an April article, based on the videotape, the Times wrote about a toast Obama gave during a 2003 farewell dinner for Rashid Khalidi, who was Obama's colleague at the University of Chicago before he left for Columbia University in New York.

McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, went on the offensive over the tape Wednesday.

"The Los Angeles Times refuses to make that videotape public. I'm not in the business of talking about media bias, but what if there was a tape with John McCain with a neo-Nazi outfit being held by some media outlet? I think the treatment of the issue would be slightly different," McCain told Radio Mambi in Florida.

On Sunday, Palin blamed the "filter of the media" for the intense focus on the $150,000 the McCain campaign spent on her wardrobe since she was nominated as his vice presidential running mate.

"This whole thing with the wardrobe -- it is so ridiculous," she said in Tampa, Fla.

The Wall Street Journal later quoted her complaining to an aide that her speech on women's issues in early October received little coverage, but "they started talking about my clothes instead."

Media bias has been a popular topic for conservatives throughout the campaign. According to the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, McCain has attracted far more unfavorable coverage than Obama in the six weeks following the conventions.

The Pew study found that during that period, unfavorable stories about the Republican nominee outweighed those about the Democratic nominee by more than 3-to-1.

A study from the Center for Media and Public Affairs even kept a tally of jokes told about the presidential candidates on the "Late Show With David Letterman" and the "Tonight Show" with Jay Leno, and found they hammered Republicans over Democrats by a margin of 7-to-1.

Some say it's all in good fun, but others aren't laughing.

"The election results aren't in yet, but there is one set of surveys with an unmistakable conclusion. Everyone should be forced to admit that the publicists formerly known as the 'news' media have worked themselves to the bone this year to elect Barack Obama," Brent Bozell, president of the conservative Media Research Center, wrote in a column Wednesday.

He wrote that the Media Research Center found that network news shows aired 84 stories criticizing McCain ads, versus 32 criticizing Obama ads, between the end of the primaries and Tuesday.

In an article Tuesday, Politico.com addressed the apparent bias in media coverage of the two presidential tickets and conceded that McCain and Palin were "getting hosed" in the press.

But the article argued that the imbalance is simply a reflection of the state of the race.

"As it happens, McCain's campaign is going quite poorly and Obama's is going well. Imposing artificial balance on this reality would be a bias of its own," Politico.com wrote.

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10/29/republicans-train-frustrations-media-bias/

[vms]

PURGE: SKEPTICAL REPORTERS TOSSED OFF OBAMA PLANE
Fri Oct 31 2008 08:39:55 ET

NY POST, DALLAS MORNING NEWS, WASHINGTON TIMES TOLD TO GET OUT... ALL 3 ENDORSED MCCAIN

**Exclusive**

The Obama campaign has decided to heave out three newspapers from its plane for the final days of its blitz across battleground states -- and all three endorsed Sen. John McCain for president!

The NY POST, WASHINGTON TIMES and DALLAS MORNING NEWS have all been told to move out by Sunday to make room for network bigwigs -- and possibly for the inclusion of reporters from two black magazines, ESSENCE and JET, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

Despite pleas from top editors of the three newspapers that have covered the campaign for months at extraordinary cost, the Obama campaign says their reporters -- and possibly others -- will have to vacate their coveted seats so more power players can document the final days of Sen. Barack Obama's historic campaign to become the first black American president.

MORE

Some told the DRUDGE REPORT that the reporters are being ousted to bring on documentary film-makers to record the final days; others expect to see on board more sympathetic members of the media, including the NY TIMES' Maureen Dowd, who once complained that she was barred from McCain's Straight Talk Express airplane.

After a week of quiet but desperate behind-the-scenes negotiations, the reporters of the three papers heard last night that they were definitely off for the final swing. They are already planning how to cover the final days by flying commercial or driving from event to event.

Developing...

http://www.drudgereport.com/flashopp.htm


********************


Friday, October 31, 2008
Washington Times kicked off Obama plane for finale
The Washington Times
The Washington Times, which has covered the Barack Obama campaign from the start, was kicked off the Democrat's campaign plane for the final 72 hours of the race.

The Obama campaign informed the newspaper Thursday evening of its decision, which came two days after The Times editorial page endorsed Senator John McCain over Mr. Obama. The Times editorial page runs completely independent of the news department.

"This feels like the journalistic equivalent of redistributing the wealth, we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars covering Senator Obama's campaign, traveling on his plane, and taking our turn in the reporter's pool, only to have our seat given away to someone else in the last days of the campaign," said Washington Times Executive Editor John Solomon.

"I hope the candidate that promises to unite America isn't using a litmus test to determine who gets to cover his campaign."

The Times formally protested the decision, noting that it has one of the top 20 largest newspaper Web sites in the country, distributes its print edition in the key battleground state of Virginia, and has had its stories repeatedly cited by Mr. Obama and other Democrats throughout the campaign.

"Sen. Obama himself demonstrated he appreciates the importance of The Washington Times and its news coverage. In June, he wrote a letter citing a Times' investigative project that highlighted government mistreatment of our veterans. Sen. Obama requested an investigation by Congress and the administration, both of which confirmed the problems and led to corrective action at the VA. In his August acceptance speech, Sen. Obama also prominently mentioned our interview with Sen. Phil Gramm and the now infamous comments about a 'mental recession' and a 'nation of whiners'," wrote Mr. Solomon in an e-mail to Obama campaign manager David Plouffe.

Times reporter Christina Bellantoni, who has covered the Democratic campaign since 2007, is being asked to leave the campaign plane starting Sunday. In defending its decision, the Obama campaign said it respected Ms. Bellantoni's reporting and simply ran out of seats on the campaign plane for the finale because of high demand. It also noted that the Obama campaign is allowing some news media critical of the Democrat to travel, including Fox News.

"Unfortunately, demand for seats on the plane during this final weekend has far exceeded supply, and because of logistical issues we made the decision not to add a second plane. This means we've had to make hard and unpleasant for all concerned decisions about limiting some news organizations and in some cases not being in a position to offer space to news organizations altogether," wrote Obama campaign Senior Advisor and Chief Communications Officer Anita Dunn in an e-mail.

"There are simply no more seats on Senator Obama's plane," she added. "There are press seats available on Senator Bidens plane for travel this final weekend and The Washington Times is encouraged to include our vice presidential nominee in your coverage plans for this final stretch."

Link