LA Times Suppresses Tape Of Obama Praising Former PLO Operative - McCain Demands Release of Tape

The Los Angeles Times is refusing to release a videotape that it says shows Barack Obama praising a Chicago professor who was an alleged mouthpiece for the Palestine Liberation Organization while it was a designated terrorist group in the 1970s and '80s.

According an LA Times article written by Peter Wallsten in April, Obama was a "friend and frequent dinner companion" of Rashid Khalidi, who from 1976 to1982 was reportedly a director of the official Palestinian press agency, WAFA, which was operating in exile from Beirut with the PLO.

In the article -- based on the videotape obtained by the Times -- Wallsten said Obama addressed an audience during a 2003 farewell dinner for Khalidi, who was Obama's colleague at the University of Chicago, before his departure for Columbia University in New York. Obama said his many talks with Khalidi and his wife Mona stood as "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases."

Khalidi is currently the Edward Said professor of Arab Studies at Columbia. A pro-Palestinian activist, he has been a fierce critic of American foreign policy and of Israel, which he has accused of establishing an "apartheid system" of government. The PLO advocate helped facilitate negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians in the early '90s, but he has denied he was ever an employee of the group, contradicting accounts in the New York Times and Washington Times.

The LA Times told FOXNews.com that it won't reveal how it obtained the tape of Khalidi's farewell party, nor will the newspaper release it. Spokeswoman Nancy Sullivan said the paper is not interested in revisiting the story. "As far as we're concerned, the story speaks for itself," she said.

I think that it's very suspicious that I know the elite media is totally sold out to Obama and I know that the elite media is totally committed to Obama's election but for them to hide a tape like this is pretty extraordinary. 

My hunch is that what would be shocking would be very similar to Reverend Wright or very similar to Bill Ayers in what you would see was the kind of hatred and the kind of viciousness, not from Senator Obama let's be very clear, I'm certain he was calm he was cool he was rational, but all around him that evening there were people who were people who would clearly destroy Israel in a heartbeat, And he didn't walk out. He didn't leave. And, I think that it makes it indefensible.

And, I think if the average American saw on top of Reverend Wright and on top of Bill Ayers and on top of ACORN and on top of the other things we've seen, if they saw the degree to which he was comfortable surrounded by hatred particularly hatred of America and hatred of Israel, I think that it would make them very sober.

LA Times excuses so far:

* “We did report on it. Why aren’t you happy with that?”

* “There are ethical problems with releasing the tape.”

* “No comment.”