McCain’s Hamas Problem
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Barack, Israel, McCain, Terrorism, The War On Terrorism, The World(UPDATE: Go here to read how McCain’s statement was taken out of context. In other words, this post was based on a false report and should be read as such, even though I still think McCain raising money off of Hamas’ “endorsement” of Obama is hacky at best.)
As most of you know by now, Hamas said they wanted Obama as president. Not much he could do about that, and he’s stated before that he wouldn’t be open to talking to them, but there it is nonetheless.
Unfortunately, McCain took that opportunity to try and land a cheap shot against the Illinois senator and even went so far as to raise money off of it.
Well…maybe McCain is Hamas’ worst nightmare now, but back in 2006 he seemed a lot more open to dealing with them.
I asked: “Do you think that American diplomats should be operating the way they have in the past, working with the Palestinian government if Hamas is now in charge?”McCain answered: “They’re the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous administrations had such antipathy towards Hamas because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so . . . but it’s a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that.”
How can the McCain of 2006 square his comments with the McCain of 2008? It’s not like Hamas has really changed that much, and that election was widely regarded as a disaster then.
And doesn’t it seem like McCain ‘08 would be raising money off the comments of McCain ‘06? Let’s also remember one very important thing…Obama has said NOTHING like this regarding Hamas. Hamas simply came out and talked about Obama…and that was enough for McCain to pounce.
So yes, the broader point here is that McCain’s attack is not the kind you expect from somebody who’s promising change in Washington. Let’s hope we don’t see more of this in the days ahead.
UPDATE:
Here’s the video…
(h/t: TPM)
This entry was posted on Friday, May 16th, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Barack, Israel, McCain, Terrorism, The War On Terrorism, The World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
May 16th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
UPDATE:
What the WAPO left out about the interview. The very next question:
The only problem I see for McCain, is that the mainstream press is being deliberately deceptive by leaving out important information in order to discredit his campaign. If you don’t believe me, take it from John McCain on the very same day as the Jaimie Rubin interview, in another interview, this time with CNN. Notice the same clothing and the same location.
Will the WAPO print a retraction? Of course not. Will Justin update this post with a link to the video I just referenced? …
May 16th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
Great catch Jimmy.
Corrected.
May 17th, 2008 at 12:29 am
By the responses for McCain on the vairous websites, this guy is dead in the water. No SUPPORT – media candidate Big loser. Too bad the other guy Obama is an anti-white racist and did I mention socialist. As a Republican I will not be supporter McCain – NO WAY. We need a totally different approach in America because the two-party system is corrupted. For the first time ever, I will be voting 3rd Party and that will be for Bob Barr. I would probably have sat it all out until he decided to run or maybe wrote in Ron Paul.
May 17th, 2008 at 12:37 am
Ha Ha- looking at sites around the net like this, you can see there is no interest in McCain. He is dead in the water – a Media pushed candidate that has no real support among the people. Too bad the other guy, Obama is an anti-white racist and did I mention a socialist. I am a Republican and there is NO WAY I am voting for John McCain. For the first time ever, I will be voting 3rd party for Bob Barr. If it wasn’t for Barr running I probably would have sat out or did a protest vote and wrote in Ron Paul. We don’t need change in this country we need to break the corrupt two party system. Obama = McCain who voted for his buddy Lieberman in 2000 when Gore ran.