Will McCain Talk to Terrorists?

Did you see Jamie Rubin's piece over at the Huffington Post, "Talking with Our Enemies: McCain Should Admit The Truth and Stop Attacking the Messenger"?

Rubin argues that McCain's open to political dialog with terrorists, and the Arizona Senator's backing of President Bush language of appeasement, offered in his Knesset speech, was political opportunism.

Here's Rubin:

There is a war going on in Iraq. This fall's election will be a virtual referendum on the war. That is a real issue. Instead of debating that, President Bush and Senator McCain are determined to attack the character of their political opponents. As a Democrat, I am tired of having our patriotism attacked. Yesterday, the Democratic Party leaders were unified in denouncing these kinds of attacks. Senator Hillary Clinton, Senator Joe Biden and the Majority Leader Harry Reid all spoke in unison to defend Senator Obama.

So I say to the McCain campaign, just admit the truth, either he made a mistake or he changed his mind, then let us return to debating the issues as Americans.

That sounds pretty tough.

But there's a problem. Rubin also said this, earlier in the entry:

The question and answer I released yesterday was a full question and a full answer. Nothing was left out of the question or the answer. Nothing is taken out of context....

I have dug out what I believe to be all of the discussion on Hamas during our interview....

As you can see, there is no conditionality in any of his answers. Nowhere does he say what Senator Clinton and Senator Obama say: that is, Hamas has to renounce terrorism, recognize Israel and accept the previous agreements of the Palestinian authority before we could deal with them. Instead, Senator McCain is talking about engagement with Hamas and how it could come about.

Nothing was taken out of context? No conditionality?

Jonathan Martin has the video from the interview (also cited by Rubin):

So what's the problem here? How do we interpret this passage on McCain's position on Hamas?

I think the United States should take a step back, see what they do when they form their government, see what their policies are, and see the ways that we can engage with them, and if there aren’t any, there may be a hiatus," McCain said. "But I think part of the relationship is going to be dictated by how Hamas acts, not how the United States acts.

McCain clearly says let's "see what their policies are..." In other words, don't enter into relations until we see if Hamas renounces killing and terror.

That sounds like a precondition to me.

See also, Gateway Pundit, "Obama Repeats Jamie Rubin's Lie On McCain (Video)."