Last night on the Daily Show, Jon Stewart asked McCain about Hamas's endorsement of Barack Obama. Stewart gave McCain an opportunity to distance himself from an earlier statement that the endorsement made it "very clear who Hamas wants to be the next president of the United States." McCain passed, because, it does seem pretty clear. Hamas endorsed Obama, and without a word of protest from the Obama campaign. So Obama responds today:

“This is offensive, and I think it's disappointing,” Obama told Blitzer, when asked his thoughts about McCain’s comments that the terrorist organization Hamas wants Obama to be president. “Because John McCain always says ‘I am not going to run that kind of politics,’ and to engage in that kind of smear is unfortunate, particularly because my policy toward Hamas has been no different than his.

“I’ve said it’s a terrorist organization and we should not negotiate with them unless they recognize Israel, renounce violence, and unless they are willing to abide by previous accords between the Palestinians and the Israelis. So for him to toss out comments like that I think is an example of him losing his bearings as he pursues this nomination. We don’t need name calling in this debate.”

In the same breath as he says McCain is name calling, he effectively calls McCain a senile old coot. Mark Salter put out a statement blasting Obama over the rank hypocrisy of his attack.

Of course what's really absurd is Obama's insistence that his policy towards Hamas is no different than McCain's. This might be true if Obama wasn't in such a rush to play pattycake with Iran, which provides the funding and training that sustain Hamas, and which, like Hamas, denies Israel's right to exist. And in case Obama forgot what Hamas's benefactors in Tehran think of Israel, Ahmadinejad offered these words today on the occasion of Israel's 60th anniversary:

"Those who think they can revive the stinking corpse of the usurping and fake Israeli regime by throwing a birthday party are seriously mistaken," the official IRNA news agency quoted Ahmadinejad as having said.

"Today the reason for the Zionist regime's existence is questioned, and this regime is on its way to annihilation."

Obama will meet with Ahmadinejad and demonstrate that open hostility to Israel's very existence is no kind of obstacle to friendly relations with the United States, just as he demonstrated at his church that open hostility to Israel's existence was no kind of obstacle to his attendance on Sunday mornings. So is it any wonder that Hamas wants Obama to be president?