Uncooperative Radio: Democrats Say President's Speech Targeted Obama

Friday, May 16, 2008

Democrats Say President's Speech Targeted Obama

President Bush pointedly criticized those who advocate talks with "terrorists and radicals" Thursday in a speech to the Israeli Knesset, sparking charges from Democrats that he was targeting presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Two paragraphs in a speech praising Israel upon its 60th anniversary and extolling U.S.-Israeli ties ignited a firestorm back home. Democrats said Bush had violated the tradition of leaving politics at the water's edge.

"Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," Bush said. "We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement."

Where in that quote does it mention barak abomination? It is the democrats who are playing politics not the President. There are other people in the world who think talking to terrorists and radicals is a good idea, it just so happens, so does abomination. It is not the President's fault abomination is naive when it comes to foreign affairs.

Bush did not directly mention Obama, who has said he would talk to leaders of Iran and Syria. Bush's spokeswoman, Dana Perino, said Obama was not the intended target.

While official Washington was waking up, the comment had become the focus of the presidential campaign. Obama issued a statement condemning it as a "false political attack." Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called it "long-distance swift-boating," a reference to political attacks leveled by Republicans against Democratic Sen. John Kerry during his 2004 presidential campaign.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said GOP presidential candidate John McCain should distance himself from Bush's remarks. McCain did the opposite: He questioned why Obama would "want to sit down with a state sponsor of terrorism."

That prompted Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor to accuse McCain, who advocates civility in politics, of reaching "the height of hypocrisy."

The charges and countercharges showed how important the issue could be in November. It links the war on terrorism, U.S. support for Israel, the threat of nuclear proliferation to rogue states and the balancing of military might with diplomacy.