Barack Obama on the cover of Newsweek

The article is here, but what amused me most wasn't the article itself, but rather McCain adviser Mark Salter's 3-page long e-mail to the Newsweek editor whining about the magazine's supposedly pro-Obama slant. Here's an excerpt Salter's squeal:

To see how completely Evan and Richard have accepted the Obama campaign spin look at the example of an illegitimate smear they cite: Senator McCain raising the Hamas spokesman’s comments welcoming Obama’s election. 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. On the contrary, he publicly acknowledged that he doesn’t believe Senator Obama. [Jed: This must be a typo, but what a typo!] 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 Evan or Richard 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. Rather than argue that his position on Iran is the right one and has no bearing on how Hamas views him, Senator Obama makes a false charge that we accused him of advocating a different relationship with Hamas than Senator McCain’s supports. His false characterization of Senator McCain’s statement was accepted uncritically by Evan and Richard.

Here's what Salter was responding to:

At the time of the Pennsylvania primary, the McCain campaign sent out a letter suggesting that Obama was the candidate of Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group ("Barack Obama's foreign policy plans have even won him praise from Hamas leaders," read the letter). McCain, by contrast, portrayed himself as "Hamas's worst nightmare." (In fact, Obama and McCain have the same position on Hamas —no talks, no recognition, no outreach.)

Judging by the 4:1 ratio of Mark Salter's response to the allegedly offending passage, it seems that he might have overreacted just a trifle. I don't know much about who he is, but so far, he sure does sound like he wants to be the second-coming of Karl Rove. Fortunately, however, he doesn't appear to be nearly as effective.

As for the issue at hand, I'll just go back to Andrew Sullivan's formulation of the way to respond to the type of attack being pushed by Salter and McCain: it is dishonorable to give groups like Hamas or al Qaeda influence over this presidential election.

If Salter and McCain want to attack Barack Obama on policy grounds, then by all means, they should. But there should be zero tolerance for using the words of foreign agents in political smears.

Barack Obama on the cover of Newsweek

The article is here, but what amused me most wasn't the article itself, but rather McCain adviser Mark Salter's 3-page long e-mail to the Newsweek editor whining about the magazine's supposedly pro-Obama slant. Here's an excerpt Salter's squeal:

To see how completely Evan and Richard have accepted the Obama campaign spin look at the example of an illegitimate smear they cite: Senator McCain raising the Hamas spokesman’s comments welcoming Obama’s election. 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. On the contrary, he publicly acknowledged that he doesn’t believe Senator Obama. [Jed: This must be a typo, but what a typo!] 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 Evan or Richard 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. Rather than argue that his position on Iran is the right one and has no bearing on how Hamas views him, Senator Obama makes a false charge that we accused him of advocating a different relationship with Hamas than Senator McCain’s supports. His false characterization of Senator McCain’s statement was accepted uncritically by Evan and Richard.

Here's what Salter was responding to:

At the time of the Pennsylvania primary, the McCain campaign sent out a letter suggesting that Obama was the candidate of Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group ("Barack Obama's foreign policy plans have even won him praise from Hamas leaders," read the letter). McCain, by contrast, portrayed himself as "Hamas's worst nightmare." (In fact, Obama and McCain have the same position on Hamas —no talks, no recognition, no outreach.)

Judging by the 4:1 ratio of Mark Salter's response to the allegedly offending passage, it seems that he might have overreacted just a trifle. I don't know much about who he is, but so far, he sure does sound like he wants to be the second-coming of Karl Rove. Fortunately, however, he doesn't appear to be nearly as effective.

As for the issue at hand, I'll just go back to Andrew Sullivan's formulation of the way to respond to the type of attack being pushed by Salter and McCain: it is dishonorable to give groups like Hamas or al Qaeda influence over this presidential election.

If Salter and McCain want to attack Barack Obama on policy grounds, then by all means, they should. But there should be zero tolerance for using the words of foreign agents in political smears.