Rice - State Sponsor of Terror?

The right-wing rhetoric over Hamas has come absolutely unhinged, on the heels of Jimmy Carter's visit to see the unsavories in Gaza and Syria. Go Jimmy! (Vive la Resistance! as AS might say) Thy must be feeling vulnerable.

Here is Rice, back when:

Rice, speaking to a pro-democracy forum, made the point in arguing that that the United States should not retreat from its advocacy of democracy abroad when elections do not turn out well from the US point of view. Referring to Hamas, Rice said, "I am not so sure that it is better to have these groups running the streets, masked, with guns rather than having them have to face voters and having to deliver."
....
She added that the international community should do more to convince Middle East groups that enter politics to give up terror.

- The Guardian, 11/06/06

McCAIN'S COMMENTS ABOUT HAMAS AND BARACK

So, what is McCain's attitude about Hamas? Has he simply repudiated the entire Bush policy, without even batting an eye?

MORE BACKGROUND

Keep reading. This Bush-era farce just gets more and more unreal.

"I've asked why nobody saw it coming," Ms. Rice said, speaking of her own staff. [Got that? It's the fault of the staff!] "It does say something about us not having a good enough pulse."

Immediately after the election, Bush administration officials said the results reflected a Palestinian desire for change and not necessarily an embrace of Hamas, which the United States, Israel and the European Union consider a terrorist organization sworn to Israel's destruction. But Ms. Rice's comments seemed to reflect a certain second-guessing over how the administration had failed to foresee, or factor into its thinking, the possibility of a Hamas victory.

Check out this tidbit. Whenever we read the name Elliot Abrams, aren't we free to assume the worse? Who the hell knows what happened (this doesn't particular fit with my recollection of events, but I sure don't feel confident):

Wurmser resigned his post in the vice-president's office in July 2007, only weeks after bloody clashes in Gaza between Hamas and Fatah that led to the Islamist organisation taking total control of the territory. "It looks to me that what happened wasn't so much a coup by Hamas but an attempted coup by Fatah that was pre-empted before it could happen," he said.

The Bush administration plan sought to undo the results of elections in the West Bank and Gaza in January 2006 which, to the chagrin of White House and State Department officials, saw Hamas win a majority of seats in the Palestinian legislature.

The project was approved by Bush, Rice, and Elliott Abrams, the hawkish deputy national security adviser.

-Guardian on plan (or actual plot?) to remove Hamas

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