Bush slaps 'appeasement'; Obama takes offense

Dion Nissenbaum and David Lightman | McClatchy Newspapers

last updated: May 15, 2008 03:30:32 PM

JERUSALEM — President Bush took the occasion of Israel's 60th anniversary on Thursday to compare his American political opponents to Nazi appeasers and brand them as too willing to negotiate with terrorists, remarks that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama reacted to instantly as an attack upon him.

"We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history," Bush said in his 23-minute speech to Israel's parliament.

The president's pointed criticism appeared to be a veiled jab at Obama, who has suggested that the United States should talk with its adversaries, as well as at former President Jimmy Carter, who last month met with senior officials of the radical Palestinian group Hamas in Syria.

While the White House denied that Bush was criticizing Obama, the senator's campaign fired back immediately, calling the president's remarks an "extraordinary politicization" of U.S. foreign policy.

"It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel's independence to launch a false political attack," the Illinois senator said in a statement.

"It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally Israel. Instead of tough talk and no action, we need to do what Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan did and use all elements of American power — including tough, principled, and direct diplomacy — to pressure countries like Iran and Syria."...[Open in new window]

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It's fun to watch the chimp become irrelevant. To hear him make stupid statements trying to wound Obama that apply equally to his own Secs. of Defense & State.

What an idiot. People are just not buying what he's selling anymore & he just won't shut up.

Oh, he can say stuff in front of an audience of half-insane Likudniks on the other side of the world but it just ain't playing to the proverbial little-old-lady from Paducah.

If he realises what's happening to him he must be frustrated because he has the consciousness of a toddler throwing a tantrum.

It must be hell to work on his staff these days.