Jimmy Carter  accused Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice of being untruthful over remarks made about his controversial meeting with the Islamist Hamas group.

Rice had chided Carter for meeting with Hamas, saying US State Department officials had told him such talks would not help the Middle East peace process.

Carter-Hamas meeting achieved nothing: Palestinians

Last week's meeting between former US president Jimmy Carter and the exiled leader of Hamas militants did not produce any results, Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Malki said here Wednesday...

THE CANDIDATES:

John McCain... today's headlines with excerpts

McCain in Youngstown, Ohio... sober message

“I can’t tell you that these jobs are ever going to come back to this magnificent part of the country,’’ Mr. McCain told another questioner, Sam Carbon, a student at Youngstown, who asked Mr. McCain about how he planned to save American jobs. “But I will commit to giving these workers a second chance. They need it, they deserve it. I know that’s small comfort to you, but I can’t look you in the eye and tell you those steel mills are coming back.’’

see also: Pro-NAFTA McCain delivers bad news to Ohio

McCain signals he 'gets it' on judges

Sen. John McCain has sent a signal to conservatives that he understands what they're looking for when it comes to judicial nominations.

In a response letter to Sen. Arlen Specter, McCain said he wants to see three conservative nominations confirmed to the federal appellate courts by Memorial Day and would support Specter's effort to have the Senate Judiciary discharge the nominations of Peter D. Keisler, Robert Conrad and Steve Matthews. Republicans say all three of those nominations are being slow-walked by the committee. Discharging the nominations would get them to the Senate floor, where an up-or-down vote could be help.

Hillary Clinton... today's headlines with excerpts

NYT editorial: The low road to victory

The Pennsylvania campaign, which produced yet another inconclusive result on Tuesday, was even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it.

Voters are getting tired of it; it is demeaning the political process; and it does not work. It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election...

Clinton camp claims best $$$ night ever

E-mails Clinton spokesman Phil Singer:

As of 11:30 p.m. tonight, we are at nearly $2.5 million since PA was called for HRC — 80% of that money is coming from new donors to the campaign. It’s our best night ever.

More finger wagging from mis-remembering Bill Clinton

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what he deemed a misinterpretation of his remarks during a radio interview in which he said the Obama campaign “played the race card on me.”

...  “No, no, no,” Mr. Clinton said in Pittsburgh, wagging his finger. “That’s not what I said. You always follow me around and play these little games, and I’m not going to play your games today. This is a day about Election Day. Go back and see what the question was, and what my answer was. You have mischaracterized it to get another cheap story to divert the American people from the real urgent issues before us, and I choose not to play your game today. Have a nice day.”