Is Bush easing up on Hamas?

This is a must read article. Hamas is a deadly organization dedicated to the destruction of Israel.

Back in July, the Justice Department held a bells-‘n-whistles press conference to announce a major case: a 42-count indictment, charging seven men and an ostensible charity with underwriting Hamas to the tune of nearly $60 million. Hamas, a ruthless terrorist organization dedicated to the annihilation of Israel and responsible for numerous gruesome attacks that have claimed the lives of hundreds of victims — including Americans — has been formally designated as a terrorist organization under various U.S. laws for many years.

In announcing the indictment, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft could not have been more straightforward: “To those who exploit good hearts to secretly fund violence and murder, this prosecution sends a clear message: There is no distinction between those who carry out terrorist attacks and those who knowingly finance terrorist attacks. The United States will ensure that both terrorists and their financiers meet the same, certain justice.”

Evidently, Scott McClellan did not get the memo.

At his press briefing Wednesday, President Bush’s spokesman was asked about the very real possibility that Hamas could come to dominate what will pass for the “legislature” of the Palestinian Authority (PA). There followed this stunning exchange:

Question: In the event that Hamas, a terrorist organization not yet disarmed by the PA, wins a majority in the legislative PA, will the Bush administration still send $350 million U.S. taxpayer dollars to the PA, or not?

McCLELLAN: It's — the one thing that you see when people have elections that are free and fair is that they tend to choose people who are committed to improving their livelihood, not people who are committed to terrorist acts. And I think if you look back at the previous Palestinian elections, the people that were elected, while they might have been members of Hamas, they were business professionals. They were people that ran on talking about improving the quality of life for the Palestinian people and addressing their economic needs and addressing other needs that are important to them — not terrorists.

This assertion, by the public face of the Bush administration, is breathtaking. Here’s hoping it will be corrected, resoundingly, with due haste.

What is McClellan thinking about here? All terrorist organizations engage in this kind of beguiling propaganda. That Nazis had lots of spiffy spokesmen talking about improving people’s lives. So does the IRA. So does Hezbollah. Osama bin Laden’s construction concerns built roads and infrastructure to improve people’s lives in Sudan and Afghanistan — all the better for ingress and egress to the many terror training camps he ran in those countries with impunity.

Now is not the time for fuzzy thinking....Hamas is pure evil, and they must be disarmed.