Bloggers react to news that Jimmy Carter is planning to meet with a Hamas honcho, wonder about the need for “more white people” at a Michelle Obama campaign stop, and either snicker or holler upon learning that Joe Lieberman’s Web site crashed right before the 2006 primary because it was overloaded, not because of sinister hacking.
Jimmy meet Hamas: Arab newspaper Al-Hayat reports that former President Jimmy Carter plans to meet next week with Khalid Meshal, the senior political leader of Hamas, who is living in exile in Syria. However, Carter’s press secretary, Deanna Conglileo, said that while Carter is “planning a trip to the Mideast … we are still confirming details of the trip and will issue a press release by the end of this week.” Yeah, yeah, say bloggers, who express not a whit of shock at this speculative itinerary.
Rick Moran at American Thinker calls Carter the “terrorists’ best friend”: “Hamas’s latest peace offering was to send a gunman to a Jewish seminary and slaughter 9 innocent people. I’m sure Meshal and Carter will have a lot to talk about considering the former President’s previous statements about Israel being the biggest obstacle to peace in the Middle East are perfectly in line with Meshal’s own fantasies.” Moderate Michael van der Galien concurs. “First Carter accuses Israel of being an Apartheid state,” he submits atPoliGazette, “then he goes to meet with the leader of an organization which sole purpose is to destroy Israel and to kill all Jews. As John Bolton said, ’[i]t’s about par for the course from President Carter, demonstrating a lack of judgment typical of what he does.’ “
Righty Allahpundit at Hot Air asks, “Which prominent Democrat will be tasked tomorrow with phoning Jimbo to explain why it’s not a good idea for someone who thinks Israel is an apartheid state to be huddling with terrorists in an election year? Will it be Obama himself?”
Conservative Gay Patriot fumes, “[M]aybe given that Democrat’s once-professed interest in human rights, Jimmy just might press the terrorist organization on its indiscriminate firing of rockets at civilian targets in Israel? Doubt it. In the past he has shown little for Israelis, at one point suggesting Palestinian terrorist against Israeli civilians were justified. Maybe then he’ll at least press Hamas to stop oppressing the Palestinians under its control in Gaza.”
But Tami, the One True is more sanguine: “Why is it that I honestly feel that this guy supports peace above all else? Is it his mild demeanor? His lack of declaring wars? His work to provide housing to low-income families? His willingness to sit down with people who have their thumbs on an entire race of people and can influence their emotions at the drop of a hat to try and convince them that working with the US could help them more than working against it? Am I the only one who thinks he’s trying to make things better for everyone?”
Post-racial stumping: Michelle Obama spoke at a rally at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pa., Monday, where one of her event coordinators was overheard saying to another, while looking for audience members to sit onstage behind Mrs. Obama, “Get me more white people, we need more white people.” One Asian girl was told: “We’re moving you, sorry. It’s going to look so pretty, though.”
Michael Goldfarb at the Weekly Standard’s Blog says, “The Obama campaign discriminates against people of color, and their own supporters no less, in what is presumably a misguided pander to white voters. Very strange, but perhaps Obama’s candidacy really has transcended race in America (surely this is a first). Alternatively, the campaign may just plan to stage-manage it out of public view.”
Chronicles of Brie adds, “As Obama talks about getting beyond race, … it becomes clear he hasnt alligned himself to do this. Hasnt anyone ever heard of the saying: ‘You are the company you keep?’ (Im speaking about past allegations of Meaks and Rev. Wright and now his own wife). … [I]f Hillary was ever caught saying such…the news would be having a field day, and probably even have tickers scrolling across our screens. Ridiculous.”
Ben Smith of thePolitico isn’t sure “there’s any real reason for outrage here; every campaign, at least implicitly, includes race in the staging of events like this – even a campaign whose supporters chant ‘race doesn’t matter.’ But they don’t usually get caught doing it this explicitly.”
Read more about the Obama camp’s search for white people.
Joe’s denial of service: A day before the 2006 congressional Democratic primary in Connecticut, Joe Lieberman’s Web site went down. The campaign blamed some unknown hackers associated with challenger Ned Lamont’s campaign. But an FBI investigation—made public through a Freedom of Information Act request from the StamfordAdvocate—concluded that the “joe2006.com Web site failed because it was overutilized and misconfigured. There was no evidence of (an) attack.”
Liberal Steven Benen at the Carpetbagger Report is “sure Lieberman will do the right thing, acknowledge his own mistake, express regret to the FBI for requesting an unnecessary and wasteful investigation, and apologize to Lamont supporters for the bogus accusations. We’re waiting.”
Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake is furious: “I remember sitting in the blogger room and staring at the TV with Bob Geiger and Mike Stark in open-mouthed disbelieve as it ran across the fucking chiron. It was the Story Of The Day, when that story should have been how anti-war candidate Ned Lamont was proving everyone wrong in their ‘shhh, don’t talk about the war’ wisdom that had dominated Democratic politics. It changed the general election. Its effects reverberated far past Connecticut and shook not only the party but the country to its very foundation.”
Read more about Lieberman’s Web site.
