The Voyages of the Tears

A McCain flip flop on Hamas?

by Frank James

There’s a lot chatter about the video of Sen. John McCain acknowledging in 2006 the necessity of U.S. officials dealing with Hamas.

It came when McCain was interviewed between sessions at the Davos economics conference in Switzerland by Jamie Rubin, the former Clinton State Department official who was working in television at the time.

Asked if U.S. officials should deal with the Palestinian government, McCain said:

“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

“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.”

It should go without saying that this is something of a problem for McCain. He’s been using Hamas to beat-up on Sen. Barack Obama in recent days.

A leader of Hamas, the political and terrorist organization the Palestinian people put in power through democratic elections, caused a stir when he indicated Hamas would prefer a President Obama to a President McCain, which gave McCain a new line of attack against Obama.

McCain and supporters like Mitt Romney, have also attacked Obama for saying, during one of the Democratic debates that as president he would, without conditions, meet during his first year in officer with nations with inimical interests towards the U.S. such as Iran and North Korea.

But, again, it appears that McCain’s argument against Obama is weakened somewhat by the video. It will interesting to see how the McCain campaign spins this.

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