McCain attacking Obama for a tie to a Palestinian-American Professor who McCain himself gave hundreds of thousands of dollars of grants to.

Late Update: TPM Reader BS writes in ...

I think it is more than worth reframing your lede on Obama's and McCain's ties to a "Palestinian Professor." Look there is absolutely nothing for either of them to be ashamed about. Rashid Khalidi is no terrorist, nor is he even remotely objectionable to anyone but the Daniel Pipes crowd. He is one the country's most respected political historians of the Middle East, who happens to be Palestinian, happens to write on Palestinian history, has published perhaps the most influential book on the birth of Palestinian nationalism, and who wound up at Columbia after a bidding war with U. Chicago.

Let the McCain try to argue that it's objectionable for Obama or anyone else to be tied to this guy; please keep TPM on a higher ground and let's simply point out that both candidates should be proud to have ties to him at all. I'd wager money the research that IRI funded was well worth pouring money into.

In my haste, "Palestinian Professor" seemed like a simple short-hand, though Palestinian-American probably would have been better. But if it was too simple, for the record, I subscribe to BS's point. And nothing in the original post was meant to suggest otherwise.