Obama Declines To Criticize Carter On Hamas

[Purveyor]

INDIANAPOLIS (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said on Friday it was not his place to criticize former President Jimmy Carter if he were to meet with Hamas, although Obama said he would not meet with the militant Palestinian group.

Hamas says the meeting will take place but Carter has not provided any details of whom he plans to meet during his nine-day trip to the Middle East, which begins on Sunday. The Bush administration and close U.S. ally Israel oppose the meeting.

"I'm not going to comment on former President Carter. He's a private citizen. It's not my place to discuss who he shouldn't meet with," Obama told reporters while campaigning in Indianapolis. "I know that I've said consistently that I would not meet with Hamas."

Carter has not publicly backed either candidate in the Democratic race but hinted recently that he supports Obama.

Carter's planned trip creates awkwardness for the Illinois senator, whose critics have sought to raise doubts about whether he might be inclined as president to put greater pressure on Israel to make concessions in peace talks with the Palestinians.

---EOE---

http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN1117477020080411

[DCKit]

1. One of us! One of us! Gooble Gobble, Gooble Gobble.

President Carter is doing something I would think a majority of Americans, especially Democrats, would agree needs to be done. How stupid does the Republic machine think Obama is to fall for their shit?

[SteinbachMB]

2. Obama said he wouldn't

meet with Hamas: good move.

[DCKit]

3. Perhaps not personally, but he's not a Republican, so he's keeping his options open.

Isn't it nice to have someone "different" in the race for a change?

[Poll_Blind]

4. I actually think Obama might be able to break some of the hold that...

..conservative Jewish organizations have had in framing topics from a conservative point of view- then claiming that they represent the entire spectrum of Jewish thought in America. This would make me very happy and damnit, it's long overdue.

  Even though it seems like a no-brainer common-sense thing to say what he did in respect to Carter's action's this is a huge deal in some circles and he risks drawing some withering fire from organizations like AIPAC or the Anti-Defamation League's Abe Foxman. Even no comment may not be enough for some.

  Foxman's history of public condemnations are often strategic and politically-useful. Sometimes not and egregiously so, as when he inculcated Jimmy Carter as helping to spread Anti-Semitism (see the link in my sig for more). Will he fire all his guns, hold his fire or something in between?

  It is unlikely that the Clinton camp would lose sleep over accusations of anti-Semitism by association (even second or third hand). Foxman is the presumptive bellwether in this.

  We'll all have to wait and see.

PB