# LA Times protecting Obama **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 30, 2008, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/la-times-protecting-obama/470218 "2008-10-30T05:18:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2008, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/la-times-protecting-obama/470218/121 "2008-10-31T10:35:45Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Yes, but as I said, it can be reviewed and reported on. It was already reviewed and reported on. I saw your “show employees of varying persuasions” proposal, but I’m not sure how this is supposed to produce a different result when the Times already reported on the video ages ago. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2008, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/la-times-protecting-obama/470218/122 "2008-10-31T15:43:45Z")
How about this editorial from the[Washington Post](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/30/AR2008103003244.html) > [@](#): > > Our sense is that Mr. Obama is a man of considerable intellectual curiosity who can hear out a smart, if militant, advocate for the Palestinians without compromising his own position. To suggest, as Mr. McCain has, that there is something reprehensible about associating with Mr. Khalidi is itself condemnable – especially during a campaign in which Arab ancestry has been the subject of insults. There is no doubt this is a racist smear on Khalidi, vile, unwarrented speculation on Obama, and an idiotic charge of partisanship against the LA Times. ---
**Author:** ![Phlosphr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Phlosphr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phlosphr)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2008, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/la-times-protecting-obama/470218/123 "2008-10-31T15:55:23Z")
> [@Gangster\_Octopus](#): > > How about this editorial from the[Washington Post](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/30/AR2008103003244.html) > There is no doubt this is a racist smear on Khalidi, vile, unwarrented speculation on Obama, and an idiotic charge of partisanship against the LA Times. On NPR this morning they basically said the same thing. Diane Rehm’s guest mentioned this and said McCain is foolish [said on national radio] to play this angle against Obama because of his [McCain] own ties to Khalidi’s group. It’s last minute craziness, McCain is now acting dangerously incompetent with his tirades. ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2008, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/la-times-protecting-obama/470218/124 "2008-10-31T16:17:23Z")
The more I think about it, this **was** the “other secret information” McCain had promised a week ago. He couldn’t mention it earlier lest the media start digging up his own ties; he had to save it for the endgame and release it just late enough to make a difference, but not so early that his own complicity would come out. ---
**Author:** ![Phlosphr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Phlosphr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phlosphr)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2008, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/la-times-protecting-obama/470218/125 "2008-10-31T16:25:51Z")
> [@Fish](#): > > The more I think about it, this **was** the “other secret information” McCain had promised a week ago. > > He couldn’t mention it earlier lest the media start digging up his own ties; he had to save it for the endgame and release it just late enough to make a difference, but not so early that his own complicity would come out. In my opinion, he won’t be able to convince _ **enough** _ people in the end. He has appealed to a base, core group but of the independant and moderate republicans I know, they are not buying what he’s selling. Hell, I wouldn’t want to go up against Obama either. ---
**Author:** ![Long\_Time\_First\_Time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ad7895/32.png) [@Long\_Time\_First\_Time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Long_Time_First_Time)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2008, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/la-times-protecting-obama/470218/126 "2008-10-31T16:31:17Z")
The entire idea behind the McCain campaign is flawed. It’s based on character attacks. Those don’t usually work in a vacuum, however. They might work when other things are in place, and those other conditions aren’t there. They work 1) when a candidate is unknown and 2) your candidate has something else to say. The American public got to know Obama when he went through a long drawn out primary battle. Even though the republicans now keep repeating that “We don’t really know Obama, who is the real Obama” – the fact is most Americans are pretty familiar with him now. The Republicans have to say that because the entire smear stuff falls apart if it’s not so. More importantly, they campaign seems completely focused on finding a magic bullet to finally bring down Obama. There is nothing at this point in time that McCain can say or produce about Obama that will bring him down - unless it’s something completely true. And because Obama is a cautious, centrist politician - not actually a non-American terrorist or a Black Panther - the chances that he’s actually done anything that the electorate objects to is about 0 ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2008, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/la-times-protecting-obama/470218/127 "2008-11-01T03:02:00Z")
> [@Fish](#): > > The more I think about it, this **was** the “other secret information” McCain had promised a week ago. > > He couldn’t mention it earlier lest the media start digging up his own ties; he had to save it for the endgame and release it just late enough to make a difference, but not so early that his own complicity would come out. Meanwhile, the last few weeks of McCain’s increasingly desperate-looking barrage of increasingly over-the-top attacks has sucked most of the lifeblood out of this one. “Ho-hum – another Obama’s a scary un-American liberal socialist Muslim-hugging booga-booga-man? Yawn…” – that’s my take on how this one is playing to the masses, even before the mass media (which appears to be developing some vestiges of a spine) drags into the light McCain’s own associations with the Evil Palestinian Terrorist-Lover guy. If anything, I think this is likely to hurt McCain with the moderate middle, given how it reinforces the image of him as a nasty-negative obsessive who can’t stop talking about Obama long enough to tell us anything positive about what his plans and policies are. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2008, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/la-times-protecting-obama/470218/128 "2008-11-01T04:26:48Z")
Read an editorial or opinion piece that basically said “Who cares about McCain giving money to Khalidi? Obama’s ties to him are far deeper and more serious!” So it seems that the only people paying attention so far already have their minds made up. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/la-times-protecting-obama/470218.md?page=6)