As the polls show John McCain in trouble in key battleground states, and slipping in four states carried by President Bush in 2004, the campaign is turning every trick as it grows desperate as the possibility emerges of a Democratic landslide. So the latest "hail Mary" pass thrown by the McCain camp is an attempt to peel off Jewish supporters by suggesting that Senator Obama has been a close confidant of Arab scholar and Palestinian advocate Dr. Rashid Khalidi. It is just the latest effort by the McCain campaign to try to equate Islam and terrorism, while subtly suggesting that Senator Obama is a Muslim in disguise and therefore sympathetic to terrorists. Khalidi is a professor of Arab studies at Columbia University and lived near Obama when he was teaching at the University of Chicago.  Obama apparently made positive comments about Khalidi suring a speech in 2003 that was videotaped. The tape was provided to the Los Angeles Times and the paper ran a story six months ago but did not release the videotape because it was provided by a confidential source. While badgering the Los Angeles Times to release the videotape, the McCain team hopes to at least raise doubt in the mind of Jewish voters, a strong Democratic voting bloc, over Obama's support of Israel. It is a lame attempt to divide the electorate by reinforcing the racially coded messages that have been at the core of McCain's campaign over the last month.