The Obama -Hamas issue will not die. Contrary to what some would have you believe, it is not an exaggeration. There really are big time terrorists hoping and praying that Barack Obama becomes the next President of the United States. But the Mainstream Media - most of which backs Obama - is ignoring the story or burying it on page 30. Suddenly, however, the story is exploding with such a bang that it can no longer be avoided.
But the fact of the matter is, Obama has many terrorist admirers. Hamas, for example:
"The foreign minister of Hamas has recently endorsed Obama for president, another story that has sunk like a stone, barely reported other than by Fox and a popular right-wing website, even though Sen. John McCain brought it up on the campaign trail." (Full Story by Jonathan Mark at Jewish World Review...)
What? A story that makes Obama look bad buried by the Mainstream Media? Say it ain't so! It should be noted that McCain is not saying that Obama endorses terrorst organization Hamas (although this blogger certainly wonders). Rather, McCain has accurately stated that Hamas endorses Obama. It is not unreasonable to point this out. Imagine if al Qaeda publicly stated their support of McCain (they have not). Would it be incorrect of Obama to point that out? (It would not.) One must wonder what it is about Obama that makes him attractive to murderous thugs like Hamas.
Obama has tried to play off the Hamas endorsement as something he had nothing to do with. He can't help it, he says, he's called Hamas terrorists just as Hillary Clinton and John McCain have. Trouble is, Obama has yet to disown William Ayers, a former and unrepentant Weatherman terrorist in the 1960's and longtime friend and supporter of Obama.
Obama was slow - 20 years slow by some reckoning - to disavow his "spiritual advisor," Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Of course, not all Left-leaning media are ignoring the story.
Jeffrey Goldberg wrote this at Atlantic.com on May 12:
The Hamas leader Ahmed Yousef did Barack Obama no favor recently when he said: “We like Mr. Obama and we hope that he will win the election.” John McCain jumped on this statement, calling it a “legitimate point of discussion,” and tied it to Obama’s putative softness on Iran, whose ever-charming president last week called Israel a “stinking corpse” and predicted its “annihilation.”
The Left-leaning Huffington Post, for example, has an April 18 posting by Will Thomas that begins with this silly paragraph:
John McCain has repeatedly insisted in public that he wants to run a respectful campaign, but a recent fundraising email from his campaign suggests there will be nothing revolutionary about the Republican nominee's tactics this year.
What is it that John McCain has done, what sin is it that Will Thomas finds so disrespectful? Why, John McCain told truth. Yes, truth, which is anathema to so many Liberals that they cringe at the smell of it, becoming nauseated. Don't look, Comrade! Your eyes may fall out! John McCain, whines Will Thomas, promised - he crossed his heart! - that he would run a respectful campaign, really!
Tears must have come to Will's oh-so-sensitive eyes. He wrote that McCain is being very disrespectful of Barack Obama. You see, points out Will Thomas, "McCain's deputy campaign manager, Christian Ferry, sent an email to donors today with the subject line: 'Hamas Weighs In On U.S. Presidential Election.'" Oh my, how scandalous!
The email, points out Willy Nilly, includes this:
Barack Obama's foreign policy plans have even won him praise from Hamas leaders. Ahmed Yousef, chief political adviser to the Hamas Prime Minister said, "We like Mr. Obama and we hope he will win the election. He has a vision to change America."
And this:
We need change in America, but not the kind of change that wins kind words from Hamas, surrenders in Iraq and will hold unconditional talks with Iranian President Ahmadinejad.
First, can anybody disagree with the notion that we should not be courting praise from the murderous thugs of Hamas? No? Okay, good. Let's move on, then, to very recent events.
Writer Philip Klein wrote a column on May 12 that brings the Obama-Hamas issue up to date.
"Last week," wrote Klein in the Canada Free Press, "Obama described it as a 'smear' that John McCain, in response to a question, correctly noted that a spokesman for the terrorist group publicly expressed support for Obama. But on Friday, McCain was further vindicated when the Times of London reported that Obama adviser Robert Malley had to sever ties with the campaign, because the newspaper was about to report that the prominent critic of Israel had been regularly engaging in talks with Hamas."
How disrespectful of Mr. Klein to report these Truths! He continued in his tirade of dissing Obama:
"Throughout the campaign, Obama and his staffers have dismissed any scrutiny of his views on Israel with a blend of outrage and sarcasm, as if his record of support for Israel is so extensive, so undeniable, that anybody who raises doubts about his actual views is launching an inquisition."
Let's pause for a moment. I've written it before: Democrats and Liberals are loathe to be examined with a bright light. If you dare to aim a bright light at them, you are more likely than not to be called a hater, a racist, anti-children, a knuckle dragger, a fascist, a Nazi or accused of conducting an "inquisition."
Here in Chicago, for example, our Mayor Daley has recently accused people opposed to a children's museum's attempts to move into protected parkland of being "racist" for not agreeing with his support of the museum.
When, 32 years ago, I and other students at the University of Wisconsin successfully prevented the student government from stealing $2,000 from a health insurance fund (and give it to the legal defense of accused - and later convicted - bomber David Fine), we were branded as "Nazis" and "fascists" by the Leftist students on campus. We were... Disrespectful! How dare we try to prevent theft! Why, it's not theft if the Left does it! The ends justify the means, Comrade, don't you know that?
Back to the Obama-Hamas thing, and a brilliant piece by Ken Silverstein in the May 13 Harper's Magazine:
Obama recently severed all links with Robert Malley, an informal Middle East policy adviser, after the latter “confessed” that he had met with the Palestinian group Hamas.
I would be remiss not to ask whether Mr. Malley was being "disrespectful."
Silverstein quotes a recent Huffington Post interview, in which Obama is quoted as saying, “It’s conceivable that there are those in the Arab world who say to themselves, ‘This is a guy who spent some time in the Muslim world, has a middle name of Hussein, and appears more worldly and has called for talks with people, and so he’s not going to be engaging in the same sort of cowboy diplomacy as George Bush,’ and that’s something they’re hopeful about. I think that’s a perfectly legitimate perception as long as they’re not confused about my unyielding support for Israel’s security.”
So, Obama, with double talk and poorly attempted obfuscation, more or less admits that "there are those in the Arab world" (musn't say the "H" word!)who, to paraphrase Obama, like him. Or, to put it another way, hope that he becomes the next President of the United States. Was Obama disrespecting himself by saying that?
What was that line about "my unyielding support for Israel's security?" Obama has yet to convince many that his support of Israel is "unyielding."
Back to Jonathan Mark's column:
"Recent weeks have seen a considerable amount of coverage focusing on whether Sen. Barack Obama has too many friends with an anti-American bias, notably his longtime pastor, Jeremiah Wright, whom Obama has finally renounced, and William Ayers, a Chicago professor who was a 1960s radical with the Weathermen terrorist group, a friendship Obama dismissed as casual."
"Casual," he says. The real disrespect is Obama's disrespect for the American people. We have a right to dissect his past, just as we all have a right to dissect the past of Clinton, McCain or anybody else who runs for such a crucial office as the one they seek. To brush off questions about past and present associates with known terrorism ties is disrespectful of those asking the questions.
