For John McCain, it was a favorite staple of the campaign trail:

"I think it is very clear who Hamas wants to be the next president of the United States."

This assertion was based on an interview that a Hamas spokesman, Ahmed Yousef, gave to ABC in which he said:

"Actually, we like Mr. Obama. We hope he will [win] the election and I do believe he is like John Kennedy, great man with great principle."

Well, unfortunately for McCain, Hamas has now officially un-endorsed Obama after hearing the candidate's speech at AIPAC. Among other things, Obama suggested the Jerusalem should remain the undivided capital of the Jewish state. That prompted the following rebuke from a Hamas official:

"The Democratic and Republican parties support totally the Israeli occupation at the expense of the interest and rights of Arabs and Palestinians. Hamas does not differentiate between teh two presidential candidates, Obama and McCain, because their policies regarding the Arab-Israel conflict are the same and are hostile to us, therefore we do have no preference and are not wishing for either of them to win."

I'm sure McCain will now amend his stump speech accordingly.

Former President Jimmy Carter had a lot to say at the 2008 Hay Festival in Wales this past weekend. The event, which President Bill Clinton once referred to as "the Woodstock of the mind," (the Clintons just keep getting tangled up with Woodstock don't they?) is an annual literature festival sponsored by U.K. paper, The Guardian.

In a discussion of the blockade of Hamas-led Gaza, President Carter made a series of statements that are surprisingly vicious, even for him. He referred to the blockade as "one of the greatest human rights crimes on Earth," and suggested that it was "embarrassing" to see Europeans going along with this. It isn't enough to suggest that Israel and the U.S. are engaged in a war crime or human rights tragedy. No, he goes further and presumes human rights crimes are par for the course for us. It is the Europeans who should be embarrassed for going along with, you see. They are the enlightened ones, after all.

"Let the Europeans lift the embargo and say we will protect the rights of Palestinians in Gaza," he said. Again, the clear implication is Americans won't protect human rights as a matter of course, an opinion in keeping with his later expression of "horror" over America's "torturing" of prisoners.

Carter also suggested that there is a need to "marshal help from other nations in rebuilding the destruction that we [Americans] have perpetrated on Iraq unnecessarily."

Perhaps unsubtly stoking the fires in the U.S. presidential race, Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has addressed a letter to U.N. General Secretary Ban Ki-moon declaring the Islamic Republic's desire to open a new round of talks with the West on a broad range of issues from democracy building in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America to nuclear disarmament to illegal immigration. Iran is proposing the talks as a means of gaining international legitimacy as the Bush Administration and the European Union put the final touches on a new package of incentives aimed at getting Iran to give up its uranium enrichment program. Iran's proposal pointedly does not mention suspension of the controversial program.

Talks with Iran have been a major issue in the presidential race in the past week. The presumptive Democratic nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, has said that he favors talking with America's enemies and has pledged to meet unconditionally with the heads of Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela, and Cuba. Republican nominee Sen. John McCain rejects that notion as a mark of Obama's, "inexperience and reckless judgment," on foreign policy matters. President Bush kicked off the controversy when he remarked to Israel's parliament last week that those who would engage in negotiations with terrorists groups like Hamas and their state sponsor Iran were offering, "the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history." Obama and prominent Democrats bristled at the description, which they interpreted as a direct shot at the Democratic candidate. Iran's offer of negotiations being made public at this time seems intended to keep the controversy alive in hopes of influencing the presidential race.

Time for a reality check. After last week's big political dust-up between President Bush, Barack Obama and John McCain about whether talking to Hamas or Iran constituted "appeasement," comes word that Israel, the country who provided the presidential backdrop for the controversy, has itself started talking to Hamas. From Haaretz:

Participants at a recent inner cabinet meeting were listening to details of the Egyptian mediation initiative between Israel and Hamas on a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip recently, when a senior minister reportedly reminded those present that Israel does not negotiate, directly or indirectly, with Hamas. Shin Bet security service head Yuval Diskin interrupted, saying there was no other way to describe the talks.

A letter to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, the details of which were revealed Friday, called for indirect and secret talks with Hamas to be recognized.

So, does this mean that Israel is guilty of Nazi-era-like appeasement? Perhaps McBush are preparing their condemnation for later in the day.

The furor over remarks made by President Bush in front of Israel's parliament hit a fever pitch today, as the self-identified victim of the president's comments, Sen. Barack Obama, traded barbs with Sen. John McCain over the alleged insult to Obama's judgment and ability to protect the country as president. The Political Machine covered Obama's response to the White House and McCain here.

The McCain campaign released a statement late in the day accusing Sky News interviewer, and former Assistant Secretary of State in the Clinton Administration, Jamie Rubin, of lying about McCain's position with respect to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in an op-ed he penned for the Washington Post. McCain has been referencing comments made by a Hamas spokesman that the Iranian-backed terror group is rooting for an Obama victory in the presidential race. Titled "Hypocrisy on Hamas," Rubin's op-ed accuses McCain of changing his position on Hamas, based on one question and answer from an interview Rubin conducted with McCain in 2006.

[Rubin]: "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: "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."

Rubin says the exchange proves that McCain once espoused Obama's more nuanced position with respect to meeting with America's enemies. But, as the McCain campaign pointed out in its response, the impression readers would have gotten of McCain's position would have been radically different if Rubin had reported McCain's answer to his very next question.

Senator Barack Obama responded today to George W. Bush and John S. McCain's double-team attacks from Thursday, which likened Obama to a Nazi appeaser. Video of his response is below. Obama points out that Bush is using speeches to foreign governments to campaign for John McCain, and challenges Bush and McCain to a debate on protecting America:

If George Bush and John McCain want to have a debate about protecting the United States of America, that is a debate I am happy to have any time, any place.

The White House, meanwhile, did its level best to back away from the attack, playing the wide-eyed schoolgirl. From the NY Times:

Funny, I thought that McBush said that talking to Hamas and Iran was tantamount to appeasement. Here's McCain less than two years ago:



Read James Rubin's full editorial in The Washington Post here. He's the guy conducting the interview in the clip.

From a strict policy perspective, this formulation is, of course, absurd. As Clinton, McCain, and Obama will all tell you, the differences between Clinton and Obama pale in comparison to those between Clinton and McCain. Really, it isn't even close. Virtually every single substantive issue that Clinton and Obama support, McCain does not, and vice-versa. McCain offers huge corporate tax breaks, Clinton and Obama do not. Clinton and Obama want to make sure that a woman has the right to choose whether or not to have an abortion, McCain does not. McCain has even voted to ban funds for abortions in cases of rape and incest. On the Iraq war, McCain will not hasten a pullout. Clinton and Obama will. Clinton and Obama have health-care proposals whose goal is Universal care, McCain does not. And on and on.

So why the cognitive dissonance? Well, most of the people who employ the "Hillary or McCain" retort do so for far less sensible reasons than actual policy distinctions.

Having unintentionally evolved into a New York Times bias watch-dog, I diligently attempt to remain on top of the mountainous heap of slanted news which is issued forth from that venerable institution. However, Powerline has beaten me to the punch this time, noting the Times' outright misrepresentations of the McCain/Obama/Hamas issue (which would cause a lesser instrument of journalism to slink away in shame).

The Times' story, "On McCain, Obama and a Hamas Link.," covers the issue of Obama's embarrassing endorsement by the terrorist organization Hamas. However, instead of contemplating why the thugs and murderers of Hamas have taken a liking to Obama, the Times' denounces McCain for untruthfully stating that Obama would pursue "unconditional" talks with Iran.

This shift in focus is distracting and fictitious, simply a means of covering for Obama and smearing McCain. In fact, Obama's Web site states: "Obama is the only major candidate who supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions." Watch Obama discuss the issue here. As Jim Geraghty notes over at NRO, an Obama adviser has held meetings with Hamas.

I repeat and repeat again: a news organization which misrepresents the truth in order to deceive and mislead the public in critical issues of national import has betrayed its nation with a boldness and effectiveness beyond the scope of nearly any other institution. These are institutions imbued, by their very nature, with the public trust - their sedition is a matter of unparalleled shame.

Following Friday's resignation by Obama Middle East advisor Rob Malley over his many meetings with Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas, the Obama-Hamas controversy is bubbling up once more. Over the last few weeks the controversy has been a particular point of discussion between the McCain and Obama campaigns. In an interview last week, Senator Obama said that McCain was "losing his bearings" and suggested that the Hamas issue was nothing more than a "smear" tactic. In a subsequent appearance, Senator McCain said he believed the endorsement of Senator Obama by Hamas was "a legitimate point of discussion." Conservative and liberal blogs have been abuzz, albeit to a lesser extent than the "When Will She Get Out" speculation.

Senator Obama's position with regard to rogue states and terrorist groups has been a point of contention for months, starting with his statement during a CNN Debate in July of last year that he would meet with such states without precondition. The Clinton campaign made much use of this, with Senator Clinton herself calling Obama's answer "irresponsible and frankly naive," in an interview with an Iowa newspaper that same month.