The blowup over President Bush's remarks to Israel's parliament equating talks with rogue regimes to appeasement will be front and center another day.
Barack Obama, who saw himself as the target of Bush's criticism, is expected to directly rebut the president later today at a campaign event in South Dakota.
His top foreign policy adviser, Susan Rice, said this morning on MSNBC that Obama will deliver a "very vigorous response to what was an outrageous, unprecedented, and divisive attack from President Bush yesterday which was patently dishonest."
She argued that Republican presidents, including Ronald Reagan, have talked to renegade countries. And she said Obama has made "absolutely clear" he will not deal with terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah.
While the White House officially denied the remarks were aimed at Obama, presumptive Republican nominee John McCain used the opportunity to argue again that Obama's willingness to negotiate shows he is naive and inexperienced in the ways of foreign policy.
But in an opinion piece published today in The Washington Post, former Clinton State Department official James Rubin accused McCain of hypocrisy and attempting to smear Obama.
McCain has attempted to link Obama to Hamas, which the State Department calls a terrorist group, citing a Hamas political adviser's comments praising Obama's foreign policy.
But Rubin said when he interviewed McCain two years ago for a British TV network, McCain suggested the United States should be willing to talk to Hamas officials in Gaza.
"They're the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous administrations had such antipathy towards Hamas because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so ... But it's a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that," McCain said, according to Rubin.
The McCain campaign today issued this response: “There should be no confusion, John McCain has always believed that serious engagement would require mandatory conditions and Hamas must change itself fundamentally -– renounce violence, abandon its goal of eradicating Israel and accept a two state solution. John McCain’s position is clear and has always been clear, the President of the United States should not unconditionally meet with leaders of Iran, Hamas or Hezbollah. Barack Obama has made his position equally clear, and has pledged to meet unconditionally with Iran’s leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the leaders of other rogue regimes, which shows incredibly dangerous and weak judgment,” Tucker Bounds, a campaign spokesman, said in a statement.
Its good that he is speaking out on this suject and matter
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