Freedom Of Suppress
In Fahrenheit 451, "firemen" start fires. Now, a newspaper seems to believe its duty is to suppress news.
I'm talking, of course, about the controversy over a tape the LA Times possesses that shows a public event with Barack Obama and his close acquaintance, Palestinian partisan Rashid Khalidi.
The Times claims they won't show the tape because they promised their confidential source they wouldn't. (Do newspapers usually cut this sort of deal--not to protect their source, but to hide information?) They also claim they've already reported what happened, so what's the big deal? Here's how they characterized the event.
In reporting on Obama's presence at the dinner for Khalidi, the article noted that some speakers expressed anger at Israel and at U.S. foreign policy, but that Obama in his comments called for finding common ground.
Okay, fine, that's what the LA Times thinks, but others claim Obama's statements were...more wide-ranging than that.
According to one source, Obama
congratulates Khalidi for his work saying “Israel has no God-given right to occupy Palestine” plus there’s been “genocide against the Palestinian people by Israelis.”
If this is true, it sounds pretty newsworthy to me, and also sounds like the LA Times, for whatever reasons, isn't giving us the complete story. Why can't they pressure their source, who, after all, thought it okay to leak the tape in the first place, to allow it to be shown?
Failing that, there is another way--the Times could release a transcript of the tape. Why would it be okay to discuss the contents of the tape but not put out a transcript and clear up the mystery?
posted by LAGuy @ 12:18 AM
4 Comments:
The story of the event is not new; I remember reading about it months ago (maybe when the Times first sourced it back in April?). At the event, Obama supposedly talks about his deep friendship with Khalidi, all the dinners they'd shared, all the wide-ranging talks (which he hoped would continue) they'd had, etc.
The spin put out by his camp was that yes, he and Khalidi were friends and that it's further evidence that Obama can associate and talk with people of different views without demonizing them. And if that's all it is, at this point, that's not much of a story.
The suspicion that there's more to it goes up incrementally the longer the Times sits on the tape. Ayers and Khalidi being very close friends only ratchets the interest up higher.
I confess I'm on the fence about this. Obviously, the Times should release the tape or at least a transcript. If Obama did say what the source is suggesting, then it is a serious matter. Is it enough to cost him the election? In a tightly contested race, maybe.
If nothing else, it is another example of Obama telling the group he's with what they want to hear. Of course, this is what politicians do, but what it points out - yet again - is that, only a few days before the election, no one knows how Obama really feels about anything.
So far, that hasn't stopped anyone from supporting him. My guess is, unless a tape surfaces showing Obama shouting "Allah Akbar" and "Death to Israel", this won't either.
Not so sure about that last point. If it says the language LAGuy is quoting, it could well cost him Florida.
I find it hard to believe that even if Obama harbored such views that he would speak them out loud in 2003 at a public event even with an audience that agreed with such views.
Obviously, there will be a pattern of these type of issues until the polls close- its a time tested tactic to act shocked and appalled by late-breaking revelations regardless of whether such "revelations" merit such treatment on the theory that the headlines will capture the outraged reactions first and the somewhat more murky substance later (and after the election, you can always apologize for an over-reaction)- The Dems might have been more successful if they done this with the Lesser Bush's DWI revelation in 2000.
"I find it hard to believe that even if Obama harbored such views that he would speak them out loud in 2003 at a public event even with an audience that agreed with such views."
This was before he was a U.S. Senator. The dinner is known to have taken place and it's known that Obama got up to lavishly praise his friend. To the kind of people Obama was hanging out with at the time, and the kind of politics he'd been espousing, these sorts of views would have been no big deal.
"Obviously, there will be a pattern of these type of issues until the polls close- its a time tested tactic to act shocked and appalled by late-breaking revelations regardless of whether such "revelations" merit such treatment on the theory that the headlines will capture the outraged reactions first and the somewhat more murky substance later (and after the election, you can always apologize for an over-reaction)- The Dems might have been more successful if they done this with the Lesser Bush's DWI revelation in 2000."
This "revelation" is, as I said, par for the course for most of Obama's political career. What's surprising is how well he's been able to downplay, and even hide, this side of himself.
And I must be misunderstanding your point about Bush's DWI.
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