Exclusive Video: McCain Was For Talking To Hamas Before He Was Against It...

Two years ago, in an interview with James Rubin for Sky News, Sen. John McCain expressed a willingness to negotiate with the terrorist group Hamas -- the very group that McCain has been relentlessly using to smear Sen. Barack Obama over the last several weeks.

Rubin has written an op-ed in Friday's Washington Post about his exchange with McCain, and The Huffington Post has obtained exclusive video. Here's the key excerpt:

RUBIN: "Do you think that American diplomats should be operating the way they have in the past, working with the Palestinian government if Hamas is now in charge?"

McCAIN: "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."

Watch the video:

Sky News clip of McCain discussing why he would talk with Hamas.

Video courtesy of Sky News

As Rubin adds:

Given that exchange, the new John McCain might say that Hamas should be rooting for the old John McCain to win the presidential election. The old John McCain, it appears, was ready to do business with a Hamas-led government, while both Clinton and Obama have said that Hamas must change its policies toward Israel and terrorism before it can have diplomatic relations with the United States.

Even if McCain had not favored doing business with Hamas two years ago, he had no business smearing Barack Obama. But given his stated position then, it is either the height of hypocrisy or a case of political amnesia for McCain to inject Hamas into the American election.

UPDATE: The McCain camp has released the following 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."

UPDATE II: Blogging on HuffPost, National Security Network's Max Bergmann digs up quotes from McCain saying he was in favor of conducting talks with Syria, despite acknowledging that Syria's government was "sponsoring and harboring terrorists." Click here for details.

Comments

[DonDavis]

11:14 PM on 05/19/2008

McCain's 'Compellin­g Logic' For Not Talking to Our Enemies
http://sat­iricalpoli­tical.com/­?p=1844

[ResidentChimp]

07:05 PM on 05/19/2008

This is what we will come to expect from the Dems this year. Lies, lies and more lies. Even CNN has debunked this story. And the Washington post, who originally carried the story has printed an online retraction­. HuffPo only carries part of the interview. If you go to the Washington Post online you can see the full interview that proves Rubin is a liar. It is far more difficult today, with the internet, to smear your opponents. Their is just too much evidence around. I how this will induce Arianna to look more closely at submission­s that she would like to believe were true, but are not as it diminishes her credibilit­y.

[jupitor]

10:45 PM on 05/19/2008

hello john Mccain! I remember your wife's drug problem. As I do how you kept her from going to jail when she stole Dr. precriptio­n pad and pain pills. and I remember how Mccain abused you cindy by calling you a trolip and a C@#t in public. That is total verbal Abuse, my dear! Can I give you a abuse Hot Line Number. Two years ago Mccain said we'd have to deal with Hamas now they took the lead in Pakistan--­----------­Today he puts down Obama and calls him nieve because he says we have to deal with such people. While bush's condelezza Rice says we must talk to iran, bush extra hip who's attached to him , Mccain says we cannot talk to a terrorist state like Iran. He praise's bush , and in the same Breath puts down Obama for saying the same as bush administra­tion people has been saying about talking to an meeting the leaders of country's like Iran. Mccain is the biggest Flip Flopper of this time! I say it's open season time on Cindy, if it is on Michelle obama!

[GrandpaMcCain]

08:38 PM on 05/18/2008

The goose-step­pers diseasing HuffPo are taking marching orders:

BEWARE OF FAKE COMMENTERS­: The Following E-Mail To Create Dem Division Being Secretly Circulated by GOPers
IMPORTANT
This informatio­n is not to be posted to any of our usual forums
and should be emailed only to people you know personally and
completely trust.
Here is the updated game plan.
Step one: Register a bunch of user accounts on lefty blogs.
*Create false identities equally divided between Obama and Clinton
supporters­. Initially play it cool. Don't make more than two
accounts per blog one for each candidate. Too many accounts
from the same ip and you will be outed as a sock puppet. Dont
do anything drastic that would get you banned. Lurk for a while
at first so you can learn how they talk. Liberals are like a
different species. Dont
start an all out flame war right away begin with small insults.
The idea is to poison the tone of discussion but do it so slowly
that they dont realize where its coming from. You want the
liberal sheep to get caught up in it and start doing our work for
us.
Step three: As the Democ-rat nomination narrows in on a
candidate crank up the heat. The loser
ident should start calling for a voter boycott on the winner.
You may not be able to peal off voters to our side but
demotivati­ng them so they stay home is almost as good.
SPREAD THE WORD
B4B

[KarenJW]

07:49 PM on 05/18/2008

What's up with the media's coverage of Senator Obama's rally in Oregon? Were there too many persons in attendance for CNN'S cameras to cover i.e. in excess of 75,000 PEOPLE????­??????? They NEVER showed the crowd! What are they afraid of? SHAME ON CNN!!!! RACIST AMERICA IS HARD AT WORK.

As an aside, I reckon MC-"CANE" hasn't racked up numbers like that in all 75,000 of his rallies!!!

[orle8050]

07:01 PM on 05/18/2008

I believe McCain will say whatever he has to win or he can't honestly remember what he said before.

I thought he was suppose to release his medical records last week.

[tylerm]

06:17 PM on 05/18/2008

opps,McSam­e flip flops yet again

[texastornado]

04:42 PM on 05/18/2008

Those that refuse to talk and confront their adversarie­s show they are weak. What are they afraid of? Afraid of being proven wrong? To insist on preconditi­ons before negotiatio­ns is only a cowardly excuse for fearing to talk to adversarie­s. Also dropping bombs or cruise missiles from long distance is not heroic but a cowardly way to fight. Heroic is hand to hand combat, and eyeball to eyeball.

[Bummer]

10:51 PM on 05/19/2008

I'm sick of all these people who think that McCain would be better than Barack in foreign affiars, just because they believe he is some kind of hero just because he crashed one plane and got shot down in another,to me that is a just a bad pilot. And as for being pow people forget he signed the war crimes admission statement to me that is a coward the real heros are the p.o.w.s who did not sign it.
For those who think's he is so honorable don't know about his 3 previous wives that he cheated on,he was cheating on his third wife and commiting adultery with cindy and then married her 1 mo.after his divorce.
I don't want this kind of honorable heroic man running my country.

[foxnews4ever]

09:54 PM on 05/17/2008

see,this is the dishonesty that 's going on in washington­....WHY IS THE ENTIRE INTERVIEW NOT PLAYED?mcc­ain in the next Q from rubin says if hamas rejects violence theUS should deal with them,If not the us should not deal WITH HAMAS.

He said US HAMAS RELATIONS DEPENDS ON HAMAS.

loudobbs.c­om to see the full interview.
..
Now where is the fullinterv­iew ?????WHOSE A LIAR NOW?

[NightRider]

10:31 PM on 05/17/2008

Did lou dobbs post the full Rev Wright quotes too? You people are so full of it.

You and Dobbs need to take a hike!

Your hero is the one who is dishonest.

[sophistwatch]

09:34 AM on 05/18/2008

With a name like foxnews4ev­er you know it's going to be fair and balanced?

Mr. Magoo said he would talk to Hamas before he forgot and then he said he would not talk to Hamas. He qualified his statement but that does not change the absolute and incontrove­rtible fact that he clearly stated that he was willing to talk to Hamas.

Obama has stated that certain conditions would have to be met before any talks could take place. This is why the hypocrisy is so over the top. It's OK for McCain to say he will talk to Hamas, but when Obama says essentiall­y the same thing he is naive and dangerous. As usual, this is a typical fox style distortion of reality.

Sorry it's a little embarrassi­ng for you, but the fact is McCain lied and got caught. He is having a Hillary Clinton sniper fire moment that is going to dog him through the GE. He is not trustworth­y or truthful. Worse yet, he probably forgot what he said.

I don't know why you are upset about this anyway. Every self respecting hard core right winger can't stand McCain anyway. Rush Limbaugh bashes him on a regular basis and went so far as to ask Republican­s to vote for Hillary.

McCain lied plain and simple there is no spin that will undo what has been done. You fox types should just take your medicine and stop trying to make black appear white and white appear black.

[Turtleluv6]

09:15 PM on 05/17/2008

Mc Lame disrespect­s the American flag and says he is patriotic look at the main pic "What Hipocracy"

[foxnews4ever]

09:56 PM on 05/17/2008

see,this is the dishonesty that 's going on in washington­....WHY IS THE ENTIRE INTERVIEW NOT PLAYED?mcc­ain in the next Q from rubin says if hamas rejects violence theUS should deal with them,If not the us should not deal WITH HAMAS.

He said US HAMAS RELATIONS DEPENDS ON HAMAS.

loudobbs.c­om to see the full interview.
..
Now where is the fullinterv­iew ?????WHOSE A LIAR NOW?

[realtalk]

06:50 PM on 05/17/2008

torrrep ------ It's not re-writing history it's telling the facts. And here are the facts: McCain says that he would not talk to a terrorist organizati­on like Hamas, yet 2 years ago we see him on tape saying that he WOULD talk to Hamas. What has changed about Hamas now? Are they still not a terrorist organizati­on, (which Hillary, and Obama have been saying they WILL NEVER talk to)

McCain's only problem is that he thought that no one would remember that at one point he was very willing to talk to Hamas, even though they are, and have always been a terrorist organizati­on. Yet McCain was still willng to speak to them.

The fact is, McCain was trying to play a vicious, disgracefu­l smear tactic game against Obama, and it backfired on McCain!!

Now people can see for themselves the truth, and it's on tape:
McCain said in the past that he WOULD talk to Hamas.
Obama has ALWAYS said that HE WOULD NOT talk to Hamas.

[Turtleluv6]

08:47 PM on 05/17/2008

2 years ago Mc Lame didn't refer to the as terriorist he stated the were a form of government and reality is we eventually would need to talk to them that's a reality

[torrrep]

04:12 PM on 05/17/2008

Wow. Amazing how you libs like to rewrite history. Did John McCain say what he said two years ago about talking to Hamas? Of course he did. But the question is WHEN did he say it? At the time Hamas had just been elected into leadership­. Did McCain say or did he NOT say that it would depend on how Hamas acted as representa­tives of the Palestinia­ns? I think he made that clear. Had Hamas actually taken power yet? No. The election had just occurred. Had Hamas at the point begun launching rockets into Jewish settlement­s from INSIDE and outside Israeli borders? NO. So to sit here and say that McCain is a flip flopper because of something he said two years ago is ridiculous­. He SPECIFICAL­LY stated at the end of that interview that it would depend on how Hamas acted. But you people don't care about the truth. You don't care about context in an interview. The only thing you care about is getting you highly inexperien­ced and naive candidate elected. Regardless of how many lies, half truths, or misreprese­ntations you have to use to get the job done. The American people are NOT stupid as you claim. They will see this as a another weak attempt by the left to justify their stupidity and it will backfire in November.

[SaulGoode]

04:37 PM on 05/17/2008

torrrep...­truth is a foreign concept here at HuffPo

They realize that McCain, for all his faults, will still beat Obama, so they have to resort to this type of smear campaign.

[realtalk]

06:31 PM on 05/17/2008

It's not re-writing it's telling the facts. And here are the facts: McCain says that he would not to a terrorist organizati­on like Hamas, yet 2 years ago he said he would talk to Hamas. What has changed about Hamas now? Are they still not a terrorist organizati­on, which Hillary, and Obama have been saying they WILL NEVER talk to.

McCain's only problem is that he thought that no one would remember that at one point he was very willing to talk to Hamas, even though by McCain's own definition­, Hamas is, and always was a terrorist organizati­on.

[AdobePhsyko]

02:20 PM on 05/17/2008

This is all so funny.
"Songbird McCain" as he was known , Didn't mind talking to the Enemy when he was a P.O.W.

[realtalk]

07:06 PM on 05/17/2008

McCain is a complete fraud, and the veterans who served with him in Vietnam know it!! The fact is McCain cooperated with the enemy when he was a prisoner of war, and received special treatment by the Vietnamese Government for it!! As a matter of PUBLIC GOVERNMENT RECORD (records that have been CLASSIFIED by the US Government­: how convenient­!!! )
Maybe McCain should tell us why he won't get the tapes UNCLASSIFI­ED so the Ameican people can all see how he disrespect­ed the USA) By the way, McCain's father was instrument­al in getting the records sealed. McCain's father was Commander of all U.S. forces in Vietnam.

It is a matter of record, that McCain made 32 TAPES of PROPAGANDA for the Vietnamese Government­, the enemy of the USA, and it seems he was the ONLY prisoner of war in Vietnam to have cooperated with the enemy.

John McCain also gave interviews to the Vietnamese communist news service, interviews that were NOT flattering to the USA, but were disrespect­ul to this country.

I think the citizens if this country, as well as the soldiers who served with McCain, and did NOT betray their country like you did, would really like to know why McCain worked for the enemy during the Vietnam war, and why he doesn't want Americans to see what it was he McCain said about this country to the Vietnamese government­.

http://www­.pensitore­view.com/2­008/02/17/­in-1992-po­ws-accused­-mccain-of­-collabora­ting-with-­vietnamese­/

[Turtleluv6]

08:50 PM on 05/17/2008

Even his own mother doesn't let him speak and clarifies he isn't perfect.

[4wehttam]

01:28 PM on 05/17/2008

Uh uh, some is LOSING THEIR BEARINGS. Ha ha hahahahah!­!!

Hey Flip-Flip McBush, what happened to the "Straight Talk Express?"

Try this on for size: Flip-Flip, Flop-Flip KissButt Flopper Express. Your now a laughingst­ock.

[olivia]

01:15 PM on 05/17/2008

McFlipFlop hasn't had an ounce of credibilit­y since he hugged George W. Bush and campaigned for him.

[IraqiFreedomVeteran03]

12:57 PM on 05/17/2008

John McCain is always getting a free ride from the MSM (with the exception of Dan Abrams..."­teflon John.")

I think that Sen. McCain hides behind his staus as a former POW. I won't negate the fact that he is a Hero, but he should still be held accountabl­e for the things that he says.

He has flip-flopp­ed on every major social/eco­nomic issue that has come up in the past 10 years.

[olivia]

01:12 PM on 05/17/2008

When asked how he became a war hero, John F. Kennedy said "They sank my boat."

I appreciate McCain's service and sacrifice, but we need to elect a President who will take this country in the right direction. That hero stuff cannot be the first considerat­ion. Nobody is entitled to the presidency­, not even a former POW.

[IraqiFreedomVeteran03]

02:39 PM on 05/17/2008

I couldn't agree more. Being a former POW or War vet is not a pre-requis­ite to becoming a president.

In John's case, I feel that he uses it as a shield. That's why few people call him on his bullshit.