Video: McCain Campaign’s Khalidi Head Fake Exposed on CNN

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


The McCain campaign is pushing hard on the Rashid Khalidi story. Khalidi is a public intellectual and a professor of Arab studies at Columbia University. He has a history of critical statements about Israel and has been accused of serving as a PLO spokesman decades ago. He denies that charge.

He also happens to be a friend of Barack Obama’s. They were both at a function that the LA Times has video tape of, which the McCain campaign now wants to see released. The campaign is painting Obama’s ties to Khalidi as another example of Obama’s “unsavory” associations.

But wait. First of all, John McCain has some awfully bad judgment if Khalidi is so objectionable. McCain served as chairman of the International Republican Institute, which provided grants worth roughly $500,000 to the Center for Palestine Research and Studies, a group Khalidi co-founded.

Second, this Khalidi business is, at its heart, a backdoor way for the McCain campaign to bring up Jeremiah Wright, which its candidate has promised he will not do. “Obama hangs out with multiple dudes who hate Israel! You know who we’re talking about!” Today on CNN, a McCain spokesman tried to pull this trick and the anchor asked him to make it explicit. He refused to do so, making his ploy transparent and making himself look like an ass. I was entertained:

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate