Palin on the trail: New attack on Obama

Posted by Alaska_Politics

Posted: October 29, 2008 - 3:09 pm

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Republican vice presidential candidate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, accompanied by husband Todd, left, and Joe Wurzelbacher, also known as 'Joe the Plumber', speaks at a rally at Bowling Green University in Bowling Green, Ohio, Wednesday. (AP /Amy Sancetta)

From David Hulen in Anchorage -

This is getting attention today: the governor's attacks on Obama for ties to what CNN calls a "second 'radical professor'." It came in Ohio where she was campaigning with Joe the Plumber. This from the CBS News campaign blog:

(BOWLING GREEN, OHIO) Over the course of her two months on the campaign trail, Sarah Palin has accused Barack Obama of “palling around with a terrorist,” wanting to “wave the white flag of surrender to the terrorists” and has suggested that he doesn’t want to win the wars the United States is fighting. At a rally here this afternoon, she upped the ante even further by wondering aloud whether the Democratic nominee really supports Israel in the way he has repeatedly affirmed he does.

Palin’s impetus was a story published in the Los Angeles Times in April about a 2003 banquet, in which the then Illinois state senator spoke about his friendship with Rashid Khalidi, a former PLO spokesman and current Columbia University professor, who has a history of espousing views on Israel that many consider incendiary.

“And the twist here is that there's a videotape of a party for this person, back in 2003, a celebration of him, and Barack was there, and we know some very derogatory things were said there about Israel and America's support for that great nation,” Palin said. “And among other things, Israel was described there as the perpetrator of terrorism instead of the victim.”

Amid boos, Palin criticized the L.A. Times for not releasing the tape.

"It must be nice for a candidate to have major news organizations looking after his best interests like that. Maybe some politicians would love to have a pet newspaper of their very own. In this case, we have a newspaper willing to throw aside even the public's right to know in order to protect a candidate that its own editorial board has endorsed."

The L.A. Times explains why it's not releasing the tape. (It says it's honoring a commitment to a source who provided it on the condition it not be published).

More:

> Palin keeps up the hits (MSNBC campaign blog)

> Palin Stumps with Joe the Plumber, Mocks the LA Times (Washington Post campaign blog)

Here's the Post's video:

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