IOWA PRESIDENTIAL WATCH
    
Iowa... Where Presidents Begin

Donate Online Now it's easy!!

      
click on each candidate to see today's news stories (caricatures by Linda Eddy)

Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2008

GENERAL NEWS HEADLINES with excerpts


The tape the LATimes refuses to release:
Obama at 2003 banquet
praises friend, key PLO activist

Newspaper refuses to release the tape
believed to be strong anti-Israel speech

The videotape the Los Angeles Times obtained is a 2003 banquet where then-state Sen. Barack Obama spoke of his friendship with Rashid Khalidi, a leading Palestinian scholar and activist.

The Times first reported on the videotape in an April 2008 story about Obama's ties with Palestinians and Jews as he navigated the politics of Chicago. The report included a detailed description of the tape, but the newspaper did not make the video public.

... Khalidi in the 1970s often spoke to reporters on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Khalidi later lived near Obama while teaching at the University of Chicago. He is now a professor of Arab studies at Columbia University in New York.

Obama-Khalidi friendship

A special tribute came from Khalidi's friend and frequent dinner companion, the young state Sen. Barack Obama. Speaking to the crowd, Obama reminisced about meals prepared by Khalidi's wife, Mona, and conversations that had challenged his thinking.

His many talks with the Khalidis, Obama said, had been "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases. . . . It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation -- a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table," but around "this entire world."

And yet the warm embrace Obama gave to Khalidi, and words like those at the professor's going-away party, have left some Palestinian American leaders believing that Obama is more receptive to their viewpoint than he is willing to say.

McCain campaign reacts:

"A major news organization is intentionally suppressing information that could provide a clearer link between Barack Obama and Rashid Khalidi," said McCain campaign spokesman Michael Goldfarb. " . . . The election is one week away, and it's unfortunate that the press so obviously favors Barack Obama that this campaign must publicly request that the Los Angeles Times do its job -- make information public."

Obama-Khalidi permalink
 

Gallup:
Obama 49%, McCain 47%


Sources: Sarkozy views Obama stance on Iran
as 'utterly immature'

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is very critical of U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama’s positions on Iran, according to reports that have reached Israel’s government.

Sarkozy has made his criticisms only in closed forums in France. But according to a senior Israeli government source, the reports reaching Israel indicate that Sarkozy views the Democratic candidate’s stance on Iran as “utterly immature” and comprised of “formulations empty of all content.”

... according to the senior Israeli source, Sarkozy fears that Obama might "arrogantly" ignore the other members of this front and open a direct dialogue with Iran without preconditions.

 


 

McCain: gritty determination

"Nothing is inevitable here. We never give up. And we never quit," McCain declares.

...In the homestretch, he tells people to ignore the pundits who project an Obama triumph and the polls that favor the Democrat. He scorns Obama's confident air in the waning days as a premature "victory lap." He says the country deserves "someone who will fight 'til the end." And, he says a GOP victory is within reach.

"I have fought for you most of my life, and in places where defeat meant more than returning to the Senate," McCain says. Then, he adds: "I've never been the kind to back down when the stakes are high."

Palin continues to peg Obama as socialist

“Now we know that this is actually a long held view of Barack Obama’s. It was just the other day that a tape of an interview from 2001 turned up and there he was talking about the need for quote ‘redistributive change’ and Sen. Obama said that he said that he regretted–he regretted that the Supreme Court hadn’t been more radical and he described the Court’s refusal to take up the issues of redistribution of wealth as a tragedy and he said that he also regretted that the Supreme Court didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers there in the Constitution, that’s a quote,“ Palin said.


Joe the Plumber backs claim that Obama
would bring 'death to Israel'

At a stop in Columbus, he fielded the question on Israel from a self-identified Jewish senior citizen. 

The questioner said he was "concerned" with Barack Obama's associations and "It's my belief that a vote for Obama is a vote for the death to Israel." 

Wurzelbacher responded: "I do know that." 

... At a stop in Columbus, he fielded the question on Israel from a self-identified Jewish senior citizen. 

The questioner said he was "concerned" with Barack Obama's associations and "It's my belief that a vote for Obama is a vote for the death to Israel." 

Wurzelbacher responded: "I do know that." 

Ohio official state agency director
OK'd records search on Joe the Plumber

The Columbus Dispatch reports that at least one culprit has emerged from the misuse of public information to attack Joe Wurzelbacher — and to no one’s surprise, she’s a Democrat and a big Barack Obama supporter.  Helen Jones-Kelly decided to check on Wurzelbacher as soon as he became an issue in the third presidential debate.  But this maxed-out donor to Obama swears that she had no political reasons for her sudden curiosity about Wurzelbacher


Both sides of aisle rip MSNBC

The cable news channel is "completely out of control," said writer-producer Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, a self-proclaimed liberal Democrat.

She added that she would prefer a lunch date with right-leaning Fox News star Sean Hannity over left-leaning MSNBC star Keith Olbermann.

Olbermann was criticized by many who attended Monday's luncheon sponsored by the Caucus for Producers, Writers & Directors at the Beverly Hills Hotel. The event was dubbed "Hollywood, America and Election '08."

Bloodworth-Thomason and others seemed especially critical of the way MSNBC -- and other media -- has attacked Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin while demeaning her supporters...

 

 


John McCain & Sarah Palin... today's headlines with excerpts

McCain hopes Biden's words haunt Dems

... the McCain campaign is spending some of its limited resources on a television commercial that includes a recording of Biden warning that there will be an effort to purposefully "test" Obama with an international crisis. The narrator of the ad urges voters to "listen to Joe Biden talking about what electing Barack Obama will mean."

..."As soon as we heard Joe Biden's words, we discovered he was making our argument for us, he was making the case against Barack Obama," said Ben Porrit, a spokesman for the McCain campaign.

The McCain campaign believes that the criticism of Biden has reached a critical mass. That view may have been reinforced when last weekend's edition of Saturday Night Live led off with a sketch that mocked Biden's comments.

McCain ups ad buys in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania

The Nielsen Co. today released a report that drives home the extent to which Barack Obama has dominated the airwaves, but that also shows McCain is at least trying to hold his own in the campaign's last week.

On Sunday, the Nielsen folks counted 938 TV ads touting Obama in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. For McCain, the total was 264 -- meaning he was outgunned by more than 3-to-1.

But on Monday, McCain substantially increased his ad presence in the three states, airing 1,057 spots.

McCain camp accuses LATimes of suppressing Obama video supporting anti-Israeli activist

John McCain's presidential campaign today 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. The Times first reported on the videotape in an April 2008 story about Obama's ties with Palestinians and Jews as he navigated the politics of Chicago.

Politico: Why McCain is getting hosed in the press

IPW EDITORIAL NOTE: Politico hits a new low with this article... they admit the bias exists, then blame the victim.

 

 

 


Barack Obama & Joe Biden... today's headlines with excerpts'

Obama's 30-minute ad "Roadblock" airs tonight

Univision, BET and TV One are joining CBS, NBC and Fox to carry Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's paid half-hour TV address tonight -- just six days before the election.

And while MSNBC also will join in the fun, CNN reports that it took a pass, and Fox News Channel confirms it wasn't even asked to the party.

ABC, the only major broadcaster not carrying the infomercial after the network hemmed and hawed so long the Obama camp moved on, is weirdly being rewarded with a Wednesday one-on-one with the candidate for its evening newscast, which will air shortly before "The Barack Obama Show" takes over prime time at 8 p.m.

Hank Williams Jr. hits Obama for 'bitter' comment

In a new radio spot airing in Montana, Williams says: "When Barack Obama said folks like you and me were bitter, and clinging to religion, I knew he just doesn't understand small town America," says Williams, adding: "We love our God, and we love our guns, 'specially handed down from our grandfathers. And we resent it when liberals like Obama question our way of life. Don't be bitter, vote McCain."

ATF disrupts skinhead plot to kill Obama

The ATF says it has broken up a plot to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and shoot or decapitate 102 black people in a Tennessee murder spree.

In court records unsealed Monday, agents said they disrupted plans to rob a gun store and target an unnamed but predominantly African-American high school by two neo-Nazi skinheads.

 

 

 

 

 previous IPW reports

 

 

 


paid for by the Iowa Presidential Watch PAC

P.O. Box 171, Webster City, IA 50595

about us  /  contact  /  homepage

copyright use & information