The Corner

The National Review’s bloggers weigh in on the recent trips by the pope and former President Jimmy Carter. Kathryn Jean Lopez posts an e-mail from a reader who suggests that the appearance of white-haired, 81-year-old Pope Benedict XVI before thousands at Yankee Stadium could subliminally help white haired, 71-year-old John McCain with voters concerned about the Republican’s age. Lopez also looks at CNN’s coverage of former President Jimmy Carter’s meeting with Hamas officials and asks whether Carter is now Hamas’s spokesman. Andy McCarthy calls Carter Hamas’s “useful idiot,” and reminds readers that Hamas is a terrorist organization that has demanded the destruction of Israel through Islamic jihad.