(Via Josh Marshall.)
ADDED: More on Khalidi here:
Mr. Khalidi, the Edward Said professor of Arab studies at Columbia, was born in Manhattan in 1948....I don't know what the whole quote was, but I see subtlety in that statement. Obama is speaking at an event honoring a colleague, so it's no time for insults. Obama gracefully uses self-deprecation as he speaks of his own flaws, which Khalidi reminded him to see. We don't know from that whether Khalidi successfully argued that Obama had blind spots and biases or whether Khalidi served as an example of blind spots and biases. I think we see a polite and circumspect man -- perhaps even a man who follows the teaching of Jesus:
He taught at universities in Lebanon until the mid-’80s, and some critics accuse him of having been a spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization. Mr. Khalidi has denied working for the group, and says he was consulted as an expert by reporters seeking to understand it.
He was an adviser to the Palestinian delegation during Middle East peace talks from 1991 to 1993. From 1987 until 2003, he was a professor at the University of Chicago, where he became friends with Mr. Obama.
At Mr. Khalidi’s farewell party in 2003, according to the Los Angeles Times article, Mr. Obama fondly recalled their many conversations, saying they provided “consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases.”
Matthew 7
1 "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
3 "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.
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