Bush, Speaking In Knesset, Calls Israelis “Appeasers”
If we take Dana Perino at her word, which is dangerous in itself, Bush was not focused on Barack Obama with his “appeaser” comments in the Knesset. So who is negotiating with “terrorists and radicals that he is targeting? The Israelis themselves are negotiating with Syria, and Bush has the stones to criticize them in the Knesset. Booyah!
There’s a whole lot of uproar in the world today about President Bush’s speech in the Israeli Knesset yesterday. Seems Bush decided to use the example of Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler at Munich as an example for the world to avoid. He doesn’t think it wise to talk to “terrorists or radicals.” Many, of course, have seen this as a swipe at Barack Obama, who has proposed talking to the Iranians. Privately, Bush Administration officials said it was indeed a reference to Obama, at least according to some sources such as Time Magazine’s Andrew Romano. But I’m willing to give George Bush the benefit of the doubt. Here’s Dana Perino’s words denying Bush was talking about Obama when he made his statements to the Knesset (from the White House web site):
Q There’s some question about his comment here about “some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong” — you know the passage. And he talks about the “false comfort of appeasement.” This is being seen in some quarters as a slam on Senator Obama. Is this in any way directed at Senator Obama?
MS. PERINO: It is not. And I would think that all of you who cover these issues and have for a long time have known that there are many who have suggested these types of negotiations with people that President Bush thinks we should not talk to. I understand when you’re running for office you sometimes think the world revolves around you — that is not always true and it is not true in this case.
Let’s assume that Dana Perino has insight into what Bush means and that he did not actually aim his remarks at Barack Obama. Then who were the remarks aimed at?
OK, maybe Bush is doing a historical thing and charging Reagan, whose people negotiated with the Iranians in the arms for hostages deal. Maybe that’s who he thinks is an appeaser. (John McCain has something to say about that, though he is wrong historically.) But I don’t think Bush would be aiming at the big Republican icon that is Reagan. That would be suicide, and he’s still got a feww months left of decidering, after all.
I’m thinking Bush’s cowboy image just thought it would be a good thing to challenge the Israelis right there on the floor of the Knesset. After all, Bush thinks the Syrians are sponsors of terrorism, just as he thinks the Iranians are. Who is currently negotiating with the Syrians? Israel. Yeah, direct talks between Israel and Syria are close to happening. That would make Israel the target of Bush’s remarks, the entity he thinks are “appeasers.” After all, the Bush Administration said the remarks weren’t aimed at Obama. They must be aimed at those actually negotiating with rogue states sponsoring terrorism.
Bush chose his venue well. The Knesset. Wow, that takes some big stones the size of Texas to slam the Israelis on their own turf. The Israelis would call that “chutzpah.” I call it stupid. But what do I know?
Edit, 9:16 am: On second thought, there is one more person out there who has discussed talking to terrorists and radicals. John McCain, in 2006. Maybe Bush thinks John McCain is an appeaser?
for that matter so is Arlen Specter, who’s visited state sponsor of terrorism Syria at least 17 times.
I guess he loves Hitler too.
Several voices have chimed in that, in the end, the bush tactic of deriding obama has the opposite effect — it gives obama credibility, and raises the battle to a bush vs obama level, positioning obama exactly where he wants to be: duking it out with a sitting president with 27% approval rating.
to supplement Steven’s comments — if any are needed — here are two sites worth reading
1. http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/
have taken the liberty of pasting below the insightful comments of rachel maddow on the incident on olbermann last night.
2. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24664507/
MADDOW: Yes. Not only Obama versus Bush, but Obama versus Bush on foreign policy in the Middle East. I mean, this is like Eid, Purim, and Christmas all rolled into one if you‘re the Barack Obama campaign.
Literally, the issue is the safety of Israel and the stability of the Middle East. And the guy who you are arguing with is the guy whose big foreign policy idea was to remove Iran‘s secular Sunni neighbor rival to make Iran more powerful and stronger in the Middle East than they could have ever dreamed of being before George W. Bush scrabbled his way to the presidential podium.
This is exactly the fight that you want with exactly the guy you want to be fighting it out with. This was a big boon for Obama today.
OLBERMANN: Is there anything in that list or in anything in any list anywhere that the Obama campaign would not welcome as a direct argument as long as George Bush presents himself at the middle—I mean, could they be talking, I don‘t know, the value of a Yale education and they‘d be happy to argue it as long as they‘re arguing and Bush is inserting himself in the 2008 campaign?
MADDOW: I mean, any substantive issue in which everybody seriously thinks this election is going to unfold, it would be great for Obama to be fighting those issues with George Bush, whether it‘s the economy or the environment or foreign policy in the Middle East. I think the one thing where Obama would lose an argument with George W. Bush on hawkishness, it‘s on enthusiasm for and excitement about starting the next war.
John McCain is campaigning as somebody who is enthusiastically looking forward to continuing the Iraq war, to continuing the Afghanistan war, to maybe starting a third war with Iran. And I think that the justification there, the thinking there, the political analysis behind that is that the American people when asked to choose between war and peace, will choose war, that they would choose the hawkish candidate, that they would choose the person who‘s eager for the next confrontation.
I think, maybe at some times that‘s true. I think that sometimes that does happen to the American policy. I think right now, we‘ve got two simultaneous wars without end and nobody knows what the mission is for either of them, I think the American public is not in that place.
OLBERMANN: All right. With (ph) the point of McCain, as Dana just pointed out, Senator McCain would presumably have been unhappy that he was big-footed here by President Bush on this of all topics, then why, you know, sort of throw your chips in with him, calling Obama an appeaser and now eliminating any chance that this is not about Obama by throwing in Neville “Freaking” Chamberlain for - could should you—McCain may have better server saying—I don‘t know who George Bush is, wouldn‘t he?
MADDOW: Well, I think though that the Republicans surprise us over and over again by the degree to which they do not distance themselves from George W. Bush. It‘s kind of the constant political common wisdom, and it has been since George Bush‘s approval ratings went south a very long time ago. That in order for other Republicans to succeed, they really need to divorce themselves from George W. Bush and run as an anti-George Bush Republican.
We haven‘t seen any successful Republican effort to do that. Everybody keeps saying that they will start doing that. But we‘re only seeing John McCain do that on things that are essentially style points, saying that “I promise I‘ll have lots of press conferences, I promise I will admit my mistakes, I promise you can buy eco-friendly t-shirts from my Web site.” I mean, it‘s style points but they stick close together on the big issues, none of them have yet thrown Bush under the bus.
OLBERMANN: We‘re going to go through his laundry list of my wish list
for 2010 in a moment. But our last question, and briefly: Is this because
and do the Republicans wig out this week because of that special election in Mississippi, where it turned out that Jeremiah Wright is apparently not going to be useable against Obama and they‘re looking for literally anything in this case being, that will leave in turn to George Bush?
MADDOW: They do seem like they don‘t know which way to turn. The fact that they are using such by superlative language about their own chances, about the health of their own party, it‘s so superlative that I feel uncomfortable quoting it on my radio show. That‘s a sign that they are in pretty dire straits even in their own assessment.