LA Crimes

To some Rashid Khalidi is a leading Palestinian scholar and activist. To others he is an Israel-hating terrorist mouth piece. To some he is a poor researcher and to others a hack. SBD is content to call him a polarizing figure, perhaps even a radical (he teaches at Columbia, for pete's sake), which then makes it no surprise that Barack Obama would be his friend, associate, drinking buddy and possible Facebook Favorite. Well, in the words of the Senator: "I do know him and I have had conversations. He is not one of my advisors; he’s not one of my foreign policy people. His kids went to the Lab school where my kids go as well. He is a respected scholar, although he vehemently disagrees with a lot of Israel’s policy . . . So we gotta be careful about guilt by association.” Mmmmm, no, we don't "gotta be careful." That's how politics works, Senator. For example, what's with Obama's kids and their ties to the children of radical anti-Americans?

Anyway, it has come up AGAIN that there is a video out there showing Senator Obama all chummy and lovey with Mr. Khalidi at a going away (not far enough, apparently) party before he took up his position at Columbia. SBD would provide a link to the video because he's not careful about guilt by association but the video is being withheld by a conspiratorial, anti-democratic group operating under the name Los Angeles Times.

"The Los Angeles Times did not publish the videotape because it was provided to us by a confidential source who did so on the condition that we not release it," said the newspaper's editor, Russ Stanton. "The Times keeps its promises to sources."

Syndey Brillo Duodenum is impressed with the cleverness of this approach. In order to ensure that a possibly damning video of one's preferred candidate is not seen by the public before they vote on whether to elect that same candidate, the best method to suppress the information is to supply it to a major metropolitan newspaper on the condition that they not publish or show the contents of the video. Damned, damned clever.

Nevertheless, Sydney Brillo Duodenum must call on Senator Obama to demand that the LA Times release the full tape and transcript so that the Senator is not complicit in the attempt to cover up another of his unfortunate associations, which he has claimed to be nothing more than the knowledge a leaf in Fall has of another leaf as it passes a branch on its way to the ground.

You may still ask: why does it matter? Well, SBD asks how could it not possibly matter? SBD is fairly sick of perfectly reasonable questions be dismissed out of hand these days.

Guilt by association? Well, stop associating with the guilty.