Making obscure academics a household name

Sarah Palin, John McCain III, Fox News, the Drudge Report, and the RNC have done a wonderful job of picking academics and people of merit out of ivory tower obscurity in an attempt to demonstrate guilt by association. If Bill Ayers wasn't enough, now the Republicans are raising the alarm on Obama's friendship to the "Palestinian Radical Rashid Khalidi." [insert sarcasm] It appears that Obama and Khalidi built a friendship when both were at Chicago.

Khalidi, the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia, is a well respected scholar. As a matter of fact, he's one of the leading scholars of Middle Eastern studies. He's served as a diplomatic representative for Palestinians and has spoken for Palestinians and their rights under occupation. Even when the august sage Joe the Plumber attests to Obama's threat to Israel's security, the Republican attacks on Khalidi's association with Obama is a thin attack and ploy to scare Jewish voters in Florida and elsewhere and to wring the "radical" bell.