The Tape--Obama and the PLO

From Texas Rainmaker--but you can find the story on almost any right-wing blog:

Shameful and disgusting.

John McCain’s presidential campaign Tuesday accused the Los Angeles Times of “intentionally suppressing” a videotape it obtained of a 2003 banquet where then-state Sen. Barack Obama spoke of his friendship with Rashid Khalidi, a leading Palestinian scholar and activist.

Apparently it was newsworthy enough to spawn an article in the paper, so we have to wonder what’s on the tape that is so newsworthy the paper (who has endorsed Barack Obama) does not want the world seeing before the election.

Maybe because the man Obama was heaping praise upon was a spokesman for the Palestinian Liberation Organization and served on the PLO “guidance committee”…
Mr. Khalidi was at that time “a director of the Palestinian press agency.” That would be Wikalat al-Anba al-Filastinija, or WAFA, the PLO press agency, where Mr. Khalidi’s wife, Mona, was chief English-language editor in 1976-82. Mr. Friedman quotes Mr. Khalidi in his official capacity saying that the Israelis are out to “crush the P.L.O.” … he served on the PLO “guidance committee” at the Madrid conference, along with such figures as Faisal Husseini, Hanan Ashrawi and Sari Nusseibeh.

And yet the L.A. Times has a video of Obama praising Khalidi and refuses to release it. Makes you wonder just what they’re trying to hide for their endorsed candidate.

That's a specific instance of media bias--but there's a general trend too. Here are some results from a recent Pew study of major media coverage of McCain and Obama over the six weeks between the conventions and the final debate (Sept. 3-Oct. 16):

For Obama during this period, just over a third of the stories were clearly positive in tone (36%), while a similar number (35%) were neutral or mixed. A smaller number (29%) were negative.

For McCain, by comparison, nearly six in ten of the stories studied were decidedly negative in nature (57%), while fewer than two in ten (14%) were positive.

I'm pretty convinced that the media are pulling out all the stops to push their chosen candidate over the finish line. Don't let them discourage you--they will probably be even more negative about McCain over this final weekend. I wouldn't be surprised to see polls showing a big Obama lead after they've been tightening all week. Just remember what the media bias is, take it all with a HUGE grain of salt, and go vote!