McCain - Desparate and Dangerous Khalidi Accusation

By Rowan Wolf

McCain has been trying a last ditch attempt to link Obama to "terrorsts" with the latest tempest in a teapot regarding Rashid Khalidi. Not only is Khalidi not a member or spokesperson for the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization), but the institute he helped found - The Center for Palestine Research and Studies, has been funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and National Endowment for Democracy (SourceWatch), but also by a group which McCain chairs - The International Republican Institute.

In this Anderson 360 (CNN) report, there is a partial debunking of the issue, but also a lie - that McCain's link to Khalidi is only tangential - clearly not true.

Perhaps the best sourced report available online is at the Huffington Post in a brief article by Seth Colter Walls.

This particular line of attack which the McCain campaign continues to trot out is not just dirty politics, it is dangerous.  Politics aside, the repeated accusations place real people's lives on the line as McCain and company spotlight individuals for those who might believe they are "protecting America" by attempting to kill terrorists who threaten "us." It seems to me that McCain and company are essentially engaging in "inciting a riot." Who is responsible if people get damaged (physically or their careers and reputations) by slanderous claims?

There are some lines you just do not cross, and McCain is way on the other side of that line.