MCCAIN WAGES WAR ON THE TIMES (THE OTHER ONE)…. I’m trying to imagine how the McCain/Palin campaign could become more ridiculous. Nothing is coming to mind.
The campaign’s style of “pinata politics” has now led McCain and Palin to swing their bat at the Los Angeles Times, taking a break from its usual complaints about the New York Times, which is what the campaign does when it’s not whining about MSNBC, which it finds time to do when it’s not describing Obama as a terrorist-sympathizing socialistic pervert. (It’s quite a classy operation the Republicans are running.)
Here’s the story in a nutshell. In April, the Times ran a report about Obama attending a going-away party for Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi, a Palestinian American (whose group received hundreds of thousands of dollars from a McCain-led Republican organization). The Times has a video from the party, which it used as the basis of its report six months ago.
McCain, Palin, and right-wing activists want the Times to release the video.
“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] said.
For her part, Sarah Palin said the Times is Obama’s “pet newspaper,” which deserves a Pulitzer prize “in kowtowing.”
I know the pressure of the campaign is getting intense, but I’m afraid the Republican ticket is starting to crack and say crazy things.
First, instead of condemning the Times, the McCain campaign should be thanking it. The Times is the one who broke the story about the going-away party in the first place — it didn’t hide the revelation, it exposed the revelation. There’d be no right-wing cries about the party if it weren’t for the Times’ article in the first place. If the paper were trying to help Obama, it wouldn’t have published the piece.
Second, the Times hasn’t released the video because its confidential source gave the paper the tape “on the condition that we not release it.” The paper received the video, and described its contents for readers. There’s no conspiracy here.
And third, for McCain to compare a going-away party for a college professor as analogous to associating with “a neo-Nazi outfit” suggests McCain’s moral compass is so irreparably broken, he probably shouldn’t seek national office.
