***scroll for updates***

President Bush will address the Palestinian elections at around 10:15am EST.

Pajamas Media has a mega-round-up of news and opinion.

Jihad Watch covers the story here and spots media bias and cluelessness here. More at Newsbusters.

Jonah Goldberg has a few quick thoughts:

1. These were free elections and Fatah appears to be honoring their result. That is a huge victory for democracy and shouldn’t be downplayed.

2. The bad news is that Hamas did very well. This doesn’t speak well of the Palestinian electorate — but it speaks even worse of Arafat’s dying regime. The silver lining (see point 1) is that there is now democratic accountability or, more accurately, a precedent for accountability…

David Horovitz calls the election an “earthquake:”

Some may seek comfort in the belief that an ascent to government could prompt a greater sense of responsibility, a move to moderation. But Hamas’s intolerance is based on a perceived religious imperative. No believing Muslim, in the Hamas conception, can be reconciled to Jewish sovereignty in the Middle East. To deny that, for Hamas, is blasphemy.

And that is the ideology to which the Palestinian people, for whatever reason and by their own free hand, have just tied their fate. That is the guiding ideology with which Israel and the West will now have to grapple.

Debbie Schlussel investigates how your tax dollars have helped fund the lesser of two evils.

More blog reax: Sister Toldjah, John Stephenson, All Things Beautiful, Vital Perspective

***

White House press briefing.

10:24

President Bush: I don’t see how you can be a partner in peace if you advocate the destruction of a country as part of your platform. And I know you can’t be a partner in peace if your party has an armed wing…I will continue to remind people about what I just said…I’ve talked to Condi twice this morning. She called President Abbas…

The United States does not support political parties that want to destroy our ally, Israel…

***

Sen. Hillary Clinton: Me, too. Me, too.

Gerard Van der Leun: What’s with all the shock and surprise?

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