Israel Matzav

McCain: 'Hamas wants Obama to win'

Ten days ago, I blogged an interview with Hamas political adviser Ahmad Yousef on WABC radio, New York, in which Yousef said that Hamas wants Barack Hussein Obama to win the Presidency of the United States. I now have an audiotape of that one (as part of a video from Fox news) so let's go to the videotape:



In a bloggers' conference call on Friday, Republican Presidential candidate John McCain picked up on the theme:

"I think it's very clear who Hamas wants to be the next president of the United States," McCain, the putative Republican presidential nominee, said in a conference call on Friday with conservative bloggers.

"I think that the people should understand that I will be Hamas's worst nightmare," he said in response to a question from Jennifer Rubin of Commentary magazine.

And while the Fox newscaster in the video above correctly pointed out that a candidate cannot control who supports him, McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers is correct that Hamas support for Obama is a legitimate issue for the American people to think about:

"The reason for Hamas's praise of Senator Obama's foreign policy is his commitment to meet unconditionally with Iran... It is not only responsible to raise these critical issues in this election, but it would be the height of irresponsibility not to have this discussion with the American people," Rogers said.

Obama's foreign policy represented a "radical departure" from current standards of dealing with "rogue regimes," he said.

McCain sounded a similar theme in the conference call:

"I never expect for the leader of Hamas... to say that he wants me as president of the United States," McCain said. "I think it is very clear... why they would not want me to be president of the United States, so if Sen. Obama is favored by Hamas, I think people can make judgments accordingly."

The Obama campaign is not pleased with this latest development:

"We want to take Senator McCain at his word that he wants to run a respectful campaign, but that is becoming increasingly difficult when he continually tries to use the politics of association and makes claims he knows not to be true to advance his campaign," Hari Sevugan, the campaign spokesman, said in a statement.

"This type of politics of division and distraction not only lead to a campaign not worthy of the American people but also has failed to help our families for too long."

Obama, who has advocated meetings with leaders of "pariah states" without condition, has explicitly excluded Hamas, noting that it was recognized as a terrorist organization by the US.

You can tell a lot about a man by the company he keeps. On Wednesday, Midwest Jim at Gateway Pundit did a blog post that rounded up Obama's terrorist associations as reported by the blogosphere. Go through the list. Given the company he keeps, it's astounding that Obama is this close to becoming the Democratic Presidential nominee - let alone the President.

UPDATE 1:05 PM

CNN has more details of Friday's conference call.

On Friday, the presumptive Republican nominee was asked about the Hamas leader’s comments on a campaign conference call with bloggers.

“…I think it's very clear who Hamas wants to be the next president of the United States,” said McCain. “So apparently has [Sandinista leader] Danny Ortega and several others. I think that people should understand that I will be Hamas's worst nightmare…If Senator Obama is favored by Hamas I think people can make judgments accordingly.”

A week ago, the Arizona senator’s campaign sent supporters a fundraising e-mail that said Hamas approved of Obama’s foreign policy vision, and is hoping for his victory this fall.

...

McCain adviser Steve Schmidt told CNN's Dana Bash that the Hamas view was "a fair issue for the American people to ponder should he be the Democratic nominee for president."

“Hamas has said they want Barack Obama to win. The reason for that is his policy. He wants to negotiate with the terrorist-funding, nuclear-aspiring, holocaust-denying, Israel-threatening dictator of Iran.

“This election is being watched all around the world. The Hamas spokesman made his comments because of his [Obama’s] policy pronouncements.”

McCain himself told reporters Friday afternoon that the Hamas nod was "just a fact."

Hamas, apparently their North American spokesperson is endorsing Senator Obama. People can make their own judgment from that. I don't view that as anything but a statement of fact. If that…. is wrong, that the North American spokesman of Hamas has not endorsed Senator Obama, I'd be happy to retract my statement, and I hope there'll be corrections in the media that state otherwise."

Don't hold your breath waiting for that correction - watch the video above.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:59 AM