An editorial in the Washington Post springs to the defense of former PLO spokesman Rashid Khalidi, dismissing Khalidi’s radicalism and ridiculing the McCain campaign for mentioning Barack Obama’s long association with him: An ‘Idiot Wind’.

If you need one more example of how the mainstream media are completely in the tank for Obama, this is it. The editorial repeats Obama campaign talking points and Khalidi’s evasions word for word.

WITH THE presidential campaign clock ticking down, Sen. John McCain has suddenly discovered a new boogeyman to link to Sen. Barack Obama: a sometimes controversial but widely respected Middle East scholar named Rashid Khalidi. 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.

Saying that the McCain campaign “likened Khalidi to neo-Nazis” is a blatant distortion, of course. McCain raised a hypothetical case to illustrate the bias of the media, saying: “I’m not in the business about talking about media bias but what if there was a tape with John McCain with a neo-Nazi outfit being held by some media outlet. I think the treatment of the issue would be slightly different.” And sure enough, as if to prove McCain’s point, today the Washington Post is distorting the statement.

Is it surprising to see the Post deny and distort like this? Not really. They’ve had a serious problem distinguishing terrorists and their shills from ordinary citizens for quite a long time. Here are just a few of the terrorists and/or terror apologists who’ve been granted access to the Washington Post’s op-ed pages recently:

Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, spiritual leader of Hezbollah.
Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
Deported Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook.