When it comes to the supression of news, Andy McCarthy says it all (once more, with feeling) at NRO in an article about how the Los Angeles Times is refusing to release a videotape of a 2003 farewell party in Chicago at which Barack Obama not only sat through an Israel-bashing program but also gave a warm testimonial on behalf of the guest of honor Rashid Khalidi — former mouthpiece for master terrorist Yasser Arafat. This is the same Rashid Khalidi Obama now dismisses as someone he just "knows"--a la William Ayers, now, infamously, "just a guy in the neighborhood." (When asked about his relationship with Khalidi in a Florida synagogue this year, Obama said: "I do know him because he talked at the University of Chicago and he is Palestinian, and I do know him and I have had conversations with him. He is not one of my advisers, he is not one of my foreign policy people, his kids went to the lab school where my kids go as well.")

The press, meanwhile, finds Sarah Palin's wardrobe far more newsworthy.  Oh, and did I mention William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn were at the Khalidi Bash as well? In the scrum for Page 1 space, the Chicago Nexus of Anti-American Radicalism loses to Sarah Palin's Fall Boots every time.

Andy writes:

Let’s try a thought experiment. Say John McCain attended a party at which known racists and terror mongers were in attendance. Say testimonials were given, including a glowing one by McCain for the benefit of the guest of honor ... who happened to be a top apologist for terrorists. Say McCain not only gave a speech but stood by, in tacit approval and solidarity, while other racists and terror mongers gave speeches that reeked of hatred for an American ally and rationalizations of terror attacks.

Now let’s say the Los Angeles Times obtained a videotape of the party.

Question: Is there any chance — any chance — the Times would not release the tape and publish front-page story after story about the gory details, with the usual accompanying chorus of sanctimony from the oped commentariat? Is there any chance, if the Times was the least bit reluctant about publishing (remember, we’re pretending here), that the rest of the mainstream media (y’know, the guys who drove Trent Lott out of his leadership position over a birthday-party toast) would not be screaming for the release of the tape?

Do we really have to ask?

More thought experimentation here.