Wolf Blitzer confirmed when interviewing Mitt Romney on The Situation Room Bush meant to include Obama among the unmentioned...
See excerpt of the exchange
http://netthetruthonline.blogspot.com/2008/05/bush-spokesperson-says-obama-was-meant.html
The Spin cycle has a decent opinion piece about McCain's comment.
Update Youtube shows McCain making statements at variance with his own former statements...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEtZlR3zp4c
McCain's YouTube Problem Just Became a Nightmare
Democratic Underground discusses. (this isn't an endorsement of DU, merely pointing out it's one other good discussion that's crossed our path.)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x134023
Spin Cycle Newsday.com
Inside Long Island, state and national politics and Election 2008
McCain: "Hysterical"
We'll do one more post on this Bush-McCain-Obama battle over Israel/Iraq/Iran/Hamas/Nazi-appeasement because it's one of the first extended exchanges of the campaign, and it sets down some markers.
McCain responds to Obama's remarks in two parts. The first is an e-mail (see full text after the jump) that begins, “It was remarkable to see Barack Obama’s hysterical diatribe in response to a speech in which his name wasn’t even mentioned."
You can watch Obama in the item below. It doesn't even get close to the zone of a "hysterical diatribe." Perhaps the McCain campaign hopes to invent a fictional Obama by misdescribing his behavior, but it might be better to get some credibility with the press by showing some restraint and fidelity to observable facts.
It also says Obama doesn't understand that the US has enemies. Talking to our enemies like Iran is an actual issue on which McCain and Obama disagree, but how does the McCain press shop get to the point of claiming that Obama doesn't understand that America has enemies? When has he ever said Iran and North Korea aren't enemies?
http://weblogs.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/politics/blog/2008/05/mccain_hysterical.html
McCain campaign responds: 'Hysterical diatribe'
politico.com ^ | 05/16/08 | bensmith
Posted on Friday, May 16, 2008 3:13:37 PM by TornadoAlley3
From McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds:
It was remarkable to see Barack Obama’s hysterical diatribe in response to a speech in which his name wasn’t even mentioned.
These are serious issues that deserve a serious debate, not the same tired partisan rants we heard today from Senator Obama. Senator Obama has pledged to unconditionally meet with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- who pledges to wipe Israel off the map, denies the Holocaust, sponsors terrorists, arms America’s enemies in Iraq and pursues nuclear weapons. What would Senator Obama talk about with such a man? It would be a wonderful thing if we lived in a world where we don’t have enemies.
But that is not the world we live in, and until Senator Obama understands that, the American people have every reason to doubt whether he has the strength, judgment and determination to keep us safe.
Oddly, McCain's response also contained the claim he'd distorted Defense Secretary Robert Gates' willingness to meet the leaders of Iran, but didn't contest Obama's point that McCain had suggested meeting with Hamas.
UPDATE: Cancel that. The McCain campaign sends over video of a second 2006 interview from the same day in Davos in which, unlike in his interview with Jamie Rubin, McCain suggests that aid and the peace process can only "resume" when Hamas agrees to "renounce" their commitment to the state of Israel.
That's a different tone, though it doesn't really contradict the the first interview, in which McCain was asked directly about American diplomats meeting with Hamas, and seemed to answer in the affirmative.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0508/McCain_campaign_responds_Hysterical_diatribe.html
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2017001/posts
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