I Am Professor Khalidi (Why John McCain Doesn't Get to Pick My Halloween Costume)

Happy Halloween. Nice costume, buddy.

Now take the damn thing off. You don't get to pick your own costume.

Nobody does. Except John McCain. He gets to pick for all of us.

Ask Rashid Khalidi.

Khalidi is a big-time professor. Which is to say that, until quite recently, he was someone most of us had never heard of. But then John McCain picked Professor Khalidi's new Halloween costume. Here's how a Washington Post editorial detailed the ensuing "vile smear":

"In the past couple of days, Mr. McCain and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, have likened Mr. Khalidi, the director of a Middle East institute at Columbia University, to neo-Nazis; called him 'a PLO spokesman'; and suggested that the Los Angeles Times is hiding something sinister by refusing to release a videotape of a 2003 dinner in honor of Mr. Khalidi at which Mr. Obama spoke."

If someone other than the GOP nominee were picking the costumes, McCain himself would have to trick-or-treat as a Giant Hypocrite because of his own links to Khalidi -- nearly half-a-million bucks worth of links. Or if someone other than the GOP nominee were picking the costumes, McCain might have to trick-or-treat as Fidel Castro because he defended higher taxes for the wealthy back in 2000.

But like I said, McCain picks the costumes.

Sometimes they're grotesque, as in the case of Professor Khalidi.

Sometimes, as with Sarah Palin, the costumes are so flattering as to be lies.

Palin's Maverick costume takes a power-abusing governor who used state money to bankroll her kids' travel and transforms her into a reformer who's going to clean up D.C. and crack down on wasteful spending.

For his improbable campaign sidekick Joe The Plumber, McCain picked an Economist costume with a big patch on the butt, which covers up the spot where Joe shot himself right in the wallet. Joe would do better under Barack Obama's tax plan. As a special treat from McCain, Joe The Plumber gets an extra costume: Foreign Policy Expert, which he wears to make such outrageously ignorant claims about Obama's stance on Israel that an actual Fox News anchorman stepped in to defend Obama. The McCain campaign, in turn, lauded Joe's "penetrating and clear analysis."

Which brings us to McCain's costumes for Jewish Americans. He considered dressing them as Old Testament slaves, dressing himself as a pharaoh, flogging them with fear-mongering claims about Israel, and putting them to work building him a grand, glittering road to the White House. But he decided they might catch sight of themselves in a mirror and understand that they're being used, that their justifiable concern for Israel is being enslaved for partisan advantage. So he's going more subtle and inviting Jewish Americans to a geometry-themed Halloween party, where everyone will come dressed as a one-dimensional object.

Someday historians will be flabbergasted by the lunatic contradictions of the McCain electoral strategy: that a campaign built on exploiting xenophobic skittishness about the foreign-ness and other-ness of American-born Barack Hussein Obama also banked so heavily on the dubious notion that Jewish Americans care so much less about their own country than they care about Israel that they'll be swayed by his baseless scare tactics. Why do I say "baseless"? Because, as Shepard Smith of Fox News admirably told Joe The Plumber, "I just want to make this 100 percent perfectly clear -- Barack Obama has said repeatedly and demonstrated repeatedly that Israel will always be a friend of the United States, no matter what happens once he becomes president of the United States."

Let's do a quick tally. How many of the Jewish people I've known, worked with, played with, studied with, befriended, and loved during my life are big enough chumps to buy what McCain is selling? None. Exactly none.

But these are the desperate cards McCain is holding. So he's playing them.

And so Professor Khalidi gets forced to wear this radical, anti-Semitic, PLO spokesman costume McCain picked for him. Here's a quote from our supposed PLO spokesman, commenting in 2007 on the fighting between the two major Palestinian factions: "It's the same kind of blind, shortsighted, irresponsible action that Hamas took in the Gaza Strip. It shows that neither of these groups, I think, really represents the deepest aspirations of the Palestinians. They've become sort of vehicles for personal and group ambitions, rather than what one could honestly call a leadership of the Palestinian National Movement. I think the Palestinian National Movement is in grave, grave crisis, frankly."

What a spokesman!

Now, I don't pretend to be able to sum up Khalidi in one quote. As Andrew Sullivan wrote:

"I have received countless emails from many students of Khalidi's who find the demonization of him as absurd as it is abhorrent. Somewhere in all this is the truth. But the complexities of a scholar's thought and record are not best explored in the heat of a campaign's final days."

Professor Khalidi's forced costuming at the hands of McCain would be laughable if it weren't so dangerous. Guarded by the best professionals in the world, McCain may not appreciate what it means to paint a giant target on the back of someone who doesn't enjoy the protection of the Secret Service. He is damn lucky nobody is dead because of the brainless hate he and Palin have incited.

McCain gets to slap these costumes on people, in part, because we let him do it. It's time to stand up, to stand alongside people like Professor Khalidi, whether we agree with all of his views or not. Because McCain would paint this same target on any one of us if he thought it would help him win. You. Me. Anyone. Absolutely anyone.

Happy Halloween, Senator McCain. My name is David Quigg. Like Professor Khalidi, I was born in the state of New York. Like Professor Khalidi, I was born in the United States of America.

I am an American, you vicious, desperate, careless, doddering bully. And I get to pick my own damn costume.

And I've picked it.

Today, senator, I am Professor Rashid Khalidi. And you, sir, are a disgrace.

Comments

[ohnoyoudidnot!]

Don't hold back! Tell it!!

[GoNitro]

I was blown away by this article. Thank you.

[bigedross]

I agree totally with this Post. John McCain has definitely placed a target on the backs of several people in this race. I guess it is east for him to do since he has Secret Service protection. Nevertheless it is still wrong.

[jcindy]

Thank you for your article. McCains ruthless character assinations will have repercussions to our own characters here in America and around the world. The word Bully is one I have started to use with the Republicans - they have been in power to long.

[Blackstock]

I think there should be some serious lawsuits filed against the McCain campaign and perhaps the RNC once this is all over. Defamation of character and incitement of racial hatred immediately spring to mind but I'm sure a few more could easily get to court. The McCain campaign has LIED over and over again and not little white lies but BIG BOLD LIES.

Imagine for a horrible moment that McCain wins. If he does, what does it say about the dishonest nature of American politics? McCain's campaign lies and massive distortions of the truth NEED to be demonstrated as a reason he lost this election or we'll never see this tide of hatred and fear-mongering turn. For that matter, I would oppose any democrat resorting to many of the same low-ball tactics just to illustrate that Rovian politics must die.

It's illegal in the US to make a death threat against the president so how can it possibly be acceptable to infer lies which put a candidate at risk from stupid extremists?

[collegemadhous]

So very eloquent, thank you. I can only hope that there will be no one injured due to these incindiary comments made by McCain and his campaign. If so (God forbid) they should be held accountabl­e..perhaps by the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct (Ethics Committee)..because McCain and crew have been less than ethical and their conduct deplorable.

[JennyJay]

McCain and his entire staff live in the sewer. . . sleep, eat and breathe the crap in the sewer.
So when they start throwing stuff at people, all they have to throw is the foul stuff around them.
We are being foolish hoping for honor or decency from people who spend every moment of
their lives in the stench of the sewer.

[kathy001]

"...you vicious, desperate, careless, doddering bully." Words that will be used to sum up McCain after the election. And Mr. Quigg is so right, McCain is just lucky that no one has been physically hurt or died from the hate-mongering he and Palin have indulged in. The hate-mongering of the McCain camp is not just disgraceful and heinous, it's shocking. Literally shocking that, in 2008, we have a Presidential candidate running on a platform of hate.

[maggieblue]

Can't Ayers and Khalidi sue McPalin for libel?

[acwright]

Well said. There is no honor in Mr. McCain's campaign. He has repeatedly shown that his goal of the presidency is more important than what America needs. There are clearly documented examples of his self serving behavior. What has happened in this campaign is a reflection of his person. I agree that the behavior of the ticket is horrible. I would like to see some accountability for this.

[Lee323]

Great post!!....I would only add that McCain has tried to force millions of Americans to wear the "Joe the Plumber" costume....a costume that is based on a man who demonstrated on national media his traits of mendacity, selfishness, and ignorance. McCain's dishonest and naked exploitation of the real plumbers, nurses, teachers etc. by using this "costume" as a campaign ploy is truly disgraceful. I, too, am Prof. Khalidi. Thank you.

[lemonyashes]

No I'm Professor Khalidi. Thank You very much.

[Riani]

Amazing how the Republicans describe Professor Rashid Khalidi and therefor, by implication, Barrack Obama as anti-semitic, when that would mean that they are against all people of semitic origin, which would include anybody of Middle Eastern descent, including Arabs!
i guess it all just becomes a bit to intellectual for comfort.

[PDinCA]

Not everyone in the middle east is semitic. Persians (Iranians) certainly aren't. Afghanis aren't. But yes, Arabs are.

[BritishAmerican]

WOW! Excellent article. The hair on my head was standing up whilst reading this. Thank you Sir! I'm a fan of yours and today as an American, I am also PROFESSOR KHALIDI.

[mitch4822]

I just pray and hope that Professor Kalidi go and see his lawyer--pretty soon!!!

[ebanks84]

Thank you for speaking up for a good American who McCain is trying to destroy to make himself look better. How awful of him to do such a thing. Desperation makes men do some of the most unfathomable things imaginable to win something they don't deserve. Our country needs to disavow all people who act uncontrollably like McCain to destroy others for their own tainted reasons.