John McCain and Sarah Palin sharply criticized the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday for refusing to make public a video of a 2003 event at which Barack Obama paid tribute to a Palestinian scholar.
The Republican presidential and vice presidential nominees accused the newspaper of trying to protect their Democratic rival in the final days before Tuesday's election.
Editors at the Times and the reporter who wrote an article in April about Obama's connection to the Palestinian scholar Rashid Khalidi said they were ethically bound to abide by a promise to a confidential source not to release the video.
McCain's spokesman had raised the issue of the video a day earlier, saying it might confirm Obama's ties to "radicals" and show that, as a candidate for the U.S. Senate, he condoned anti-Israel rhetoric at a party for Khalidi, a friend.
The Republicans increased the pressure Wednesday, when both McCain and his running mate took up the call for the Times to release the video.
McCain said in a pair of radio interviews in Miami that he believed the video would show William Ayers, the onetime Weather Underground radical who later came to know Obama, at the same 2003 party. "Now, why that should not be made public is beyond me," he said.
Inspired by commentators on the Internet and cable television, thousands of people e-mailed and phoned the Times to demand the release of the tape. Hundreds of others expressed support for the paper's decision.