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One of the nastiest forms of journalistic plastic surgery that his intimidated pals in the media have performed on the resume of Barack Obama has been to paper over his embarrassing, almost career-long, coziness with Palestinian extremists, Jew-haters, or “anti-Zionists,” as they like to think of themselves.
Last April, a Los Angeles Times reporter, Peter Wallsten, wrote about a notorious dinner in ’03 where Rashid Khalidi, the spokesman for Yassir Arafat, the most vile terrorist of the last century, was honored. Who would have cared — except that Mr. Obama, who shows such consistently wretched judgment, participated in the dinner.
Arafat, the world should be reminded, was responsible for more Jewish murders than any other thug in the final 40 years of the century. Khalidi was right there beside him.
While Jews were routinely flailed publicly and privately at the Chicago dinner, Mr. Obama was at least covertly cheering them on. You don’t get trapped in a house of prostitution, and then weakly protest, “I just was delivering the mail.”
In Mr. Wallsten’s strange story about a five-year-old event , he mentioned that the Times held a video of the dinner. The notation was passed over at the time, perhaps because the Times was rooting for Hillary, Mr. Obama was engaged in a fight to the death with her for the nomination, and the significance of the video carelessly slipped into oblivion.
Where Has Anyone Been?
Finally, on Monday, the last week before Election Day, both reporters and the slow-to-react McCain campaign remembered the Times had boasted about having possession of the video of the despicable Khalidi and his well-connec ted pal Mr. Obama.
Sdpmetimes, though, a politician has to temporarily change his stripes. With a wink to his loyal Palestinian supporters, the cold and calculating Mr. Obama did not remember until this summer, when it became politically expedient, that he really and truly likes — well, at least can tolerate — American Jews, just not other kinds. Let’s not say “Jews.” Let’s use the term his pals prefer, “Zionists.” It sounds much more impersonal, and you know how uncomfortable many Gentiles are pronouncing “Jews.” They are more comfortable formulating it as “the Jewish person.”
This latest Obama embarrassment, pulled from the nominee’s recent, very public past , allows once again for disingenuity to rear its beautiful, well-timed head in his campaign. The candidate merely shrugs and says, “What dinner?” Incurious reporters bow and say “Oh, thank you, Mr. Obama,” wheel and walk away. With that, the controversy is supposed to disintegrate.
A Little Action, Please
So many people this week have pressed the Times to release the video that the newspaper obscurely slipped an acknowledgement into this morning’s edition.
When a newspaper is embarrassed to report a story, it typically resorts to the sneaky device of declining to use a byline. Instead of a name, the story will be signed, “By a Staff Writer,” which is what the Los Angeles Times did this morning, downplaying the piece in the anonymity of page A-12.
Headlined McCain team accuses Times of ‘suppressing’ Obama video, the unsigned story is a university-style exercise in misdirection and manipulation, which is the way dishonest persons behave when trapped.
The McCain campaign, deploying sheer logic, charges that the lopsidedly pro-Obama Times, after bragging about the video, has pulled it back imply to spare Mr. Obama yet another awkward posture.
And then the darnedest thing happened. A light came down to earth from on high, which has been known to occur when a candidate for Messiah is running for President. The Times’ newest editor, the newspaper’s second or third this year, by golly, gee whillickers, Murgatroyd, just recalled that — now it all comes back to him — the Times obtained the video from a confidential source on the grounds the newspaper not show it to anyone else.
Having dealt for decades with confidential sources, this shaky explanation smacks of reshaping the truth.
Has Anybody Seen the Truth? It Used to be Here.
The editor, Russ Stanton, said the confidential source handed over the dinner video on the condition it not be shown to anyone outside of the Times. I believe Mr. Stanton is lying, which is not quite tantamount to climate change. Morally speaking, this is barely a hiccup at the Times in its present deteriorating condition. Piously, the editor added, “The Times keeps its promises to sources.” If only Mr. Stanton had been honest with himself and us instead of perspiring as he ran frantically to cover for Mr. Obama.
For dime-store chutzpah, how about this artful truth-dodging by Jamie Gold, the newspaper’s ombudsman, who threw 17 words up in the air, and this is how they landed:
“The Times is not suppressing anything. Just the opposite — the L.A. Times brought this matter to light.”
Too bad Arafat is not still alive. The ombudsman would make a dandy flack for Yassir, that’s my baby.
