All day Friday we saw the Jamie Rubin accusation — that John McCain previously supported direct talks with Hamas — play out in all the major news outlets. By day’s end the McCain camp had unearthered the entire interview in question showing McCain didn’t support unconditional talks with Hamas. In particular, McCain commented on how he believed the U.S. should treat the then-newly elected Hamas government:

I think the US should take a step back and see what they do when they form the government, see what their policies are and see the ways in which we can engage with them and if there aren’t any then there may be a hiatus but I think part of the relationship will be dictated by how Hamas acts, not how the US acts.”

Jamie Rubin cries smear in Huffington Post –but reprints the above-quote, which doesn’t help his position at all. Indeed it bolsters McCain’s position that he has always believed that any engagement of Hamas depended on its behavior. CNN’s Lou Dobbs and Ben Smith of Politico say “whoops,” acknowledging the McCain team has made its point. What will the rest of the mainstream media do?