Spin Cycle

It's such an old trick, it's a joke. The politician, pretending to take the high road: "I don't want to get into these rumors about my opponent beating his wife. I want to talk about issues."

For the past month, McCain and his supporters have made much about the fact that a leader of Hamas said that the group would look favorably on Obama's election, while insisting that they don't question Obama's abhorrence of Hamas but really want to talk about Obama's positions on the Mideast and Iran -- and are somehow incapable of doing so without bringing up Hamas.

Joe Lieberman was doing the dance on CNN over the weekend, and today, responding to a Newsweek story about the Republican attack machine, top McCain aide Mark Salter revisits the question again:

"The Senator has never said that Senator Obama shares Hamas' goals or values or proposed a relationship with Hamas different than the one he would propose.... He did note that there must be something about Obama's positions, particularly his repeated insistence that he would meet with the President of Iran (Hamas's chief state sponsor), that was welcomed by Hamas.

"Imagine if a right wing death squad spokesman announced that they welcomed McCain's election. Would (Newsweek) treat that as an illegitimate issue or would they examine which of McCain's stated positions might have found favor with the terrorists? That seems obvious on its face to me."

Two questions:

First, assuming Hamas is not filled with idiots, it knows that its endorsement is not a big plus in a US presidential election. So, wouldn't it be equally reasonable to assume that they are speaking kindly of Obama because they want McCain elected because they thrive on conflict and know he will sustain it? It's like Clinton and Obama arguing for the last four months about who the GOP wants to face -- you can never divine your foe's true motives, so relying on what they purport to think is an aimless talking point.

Second, McCain was embarrassed this weekend by reports that one of his top advisors -- the man he named to run the GOP Convention -- had been employed a few years ago as a lobbyist for the Myanmar junta, followed today by reports that his lobbyist/advisors also do work for Saudi Arabia and China. Has any news organization or political opponent used those ties to argue that McCain has pro-junta policies? Not that we know of.

The media frequently ignores things that seem spurious. And as fine as it sounds rhetorically, it's not particularly obvious that the media wouldn't just laugh off disclosure that a right-wing death squad leader was for McCain -- much less become as obsessed as McCain et al have become with Hamas.