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Jewish groups disinvite Palin to anti-Iran event

BY CRAIG GORDON | craig.gordon@newsday.com

September 19, 2008

WASHINGTON - First, no Hillary. Now, no Sarah.

Jewish groups yesterday disinvited Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin from Monday's anti-Iran rally in Manhattan - bumping her after Hillary Rodham Clinton pulled the plug on her own appearance.

Clinton backed out this week because no one told her Palin would be there. Palin got the ax because organizers feared the rally would be out-of-whack politically, minus Clinton or another top Democrat.

"It was a huge misjudgement," said one person familiar with the discussions about Palin.

Rally organizers announced yesterday that no "American political personalities" would appear - without mentioning Palin by name - as a way to avoid overshadowing their criticism of Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Republican John McCain's camp cried foul, saying Palin's invite was withdrawn "under pressure from Democratic partisans" - without saying who or what pressure. McCain's camp also didn't say whether Palin would still travel to New York to meet foreign leaders during next week's United Nations meetings, as originally planned.

Democrat Barack Obama's camp called McCain's charge "another dishonorable lie" and said Obama had nothing to do with the Palin decision - something the rally organizers also said was true.

The groups - known as the National Coalition to Stop Iran Now - scrambled to make up for the loss of Clinton, even inquiring about Obama running mate Joe Biden's availability, two sources said.

Team Obama instead offered Florida Rep. Robert Wexler, a frequent Obama surrogate, but the coalition decided he wasn't a big enough name to balance out McCain's running mate and passed, they said.